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Texas has just changed its border with Oklahoma. Well, a small piece, anyway. And no, Texas hasn’t gotten bigger.

After years of dispute over how the Texas-Oklahoma border should be drawn at the Red River, the two states reached an agreement last month, it moved Texas’ northern border slightly, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said. announced Thursday.

The problem began in 2009 when the North Texas Municipal Water District, which supplies water to several Dallas-area cities, discovered invasive zebra mussels in Lake Texoma, where it operated a water pumping station.

This raised the question of whether the pumping station was in Texas or Oklahoma. Federal law prohibits the transportation of zebra mussels across state lines. The North Texas Water District suspended pumping to avoid violating federal law. And Texas began investigating in which state exactly the pumping station was located.

The state found that the pump station was within Texas’ borders when it was built in 1989. But a new border established by Texas and Oklahoma in 2000 — the vegetation line along from the south bank of the Red River – meant that part of the station was now in the state’s northern neighbor.

In 2021, Texas sent Oklahoma a proposal for a new boundary that would ensure the station resides entirely within Texas. After years of discussions, the two states finally reached an agreement on how the border should be drawn. The Red River Boundary Commissions of Texas and Oklahoma executed the new boundary on October 30.

“This redrawn boundary line will ensure that millions of North Texas water comes from a safe source in Texas,” Buckingham said.

Reference

The recently signed border agreement between Texas and Oklahoma.

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Texas and Oklahoma exchanged about 1.34 acres of underwater land, or about a football field each. Neither state grew or shrank: had either state expanded, approval from the U.S. Congress would have been required.

The North Texas Municipal Water District also agreed to pay Oklahoma $10 million for water projects benefiting North Texas and up to $800,000 to cover legal, engineering and of survey of the University of Oklahoma related to the border, the the water district said.

The exchanged lands are controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for Lake Texoma. The lake serves as the primary water source for all of Sherman and Denison, two cities in North Texas, according to the North Texas Water District.

The Texas General Land Office said the new boundary would ensure about 30 percent of the drinking water supply is available for more than 2 million people in the region.

The final agreement, whose maps will be updated accordingly, closes the latest chapter in the Texas-Oklahoma border controversy, which has been the subject of long-standing conflicts throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Red River served as the border between the United States and Mexico and, after the Texas Revolution, between the United States and Texas.

But as the river grew and shrank in size due to natural processes, federal treaties created native reservations, and oil was discovered in North Texas, the actual site of the boundary became the subject of much controversy. Continuing turf war with the federal government, Texas, Oklahoma and Native peoples are all concerned with this issue.

The U.S. Congress passed the Red River Boundary Compact in 2000, based on legislation signed by then-Texas Governor George W. Bush and Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating establishing a boundary permanent marked by visible landmarks.

Twenty-four years later, thanks to zebra mussels and a water pumping station, state lines have moved again.

Disclosure: The Texas General Land Office has financially supported The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from its members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a suit list of them here.