Farewell, Fairfield Lake

Fairfield Lake State Park has been an oasis of tranquility in North Texas for the last 50-ish years.   With a 2400-acre lake, 126 campsites, ten miles of trails, piers, a group hall, an amphitheater, a bird-watching platform, lots of bathrooms and even a historic cemetery, there was something for almost everyone to enjoy.  In fact, over 80,000 people came to the park just last year.  They came to camp, hike, fish, geocache, sail, ride horses, or just sit back and listen to the sounds of the waves interrupted by the calls of dozens of birds.

Soon, though, chain-link fences will go up around the park, and the only sounds will be the rumble of bulldozers and the buzz of chainsaws, as the park is converted to an exclusive housing development. 

How did this happen?  

In 1969, a utility company built a dam on the Big Brown River, creating Fairfield Lake.  They leased 1460 acres to the State of Texas at no charge.  (Such arrangements are common, as the public recreation benefits help mitigate the environmental and economic effects of the land lost to the lake.)  Texas built the park, and for the next 50-ish years, power generation and camping coexisted peacefully, even symbiotically.  The lake, warmed by the power plant, became a haven for winter fishing, teeming with redfish, stripers, catfish, and largemouth bass. 

But the power plant closed in 2018, and the owner, Vistra, sold all of the property, including the park, to a developer. That’s when the public learned that the park exists under a lease that allows the owner to evict them with only 120 days notice—which they just did.  In just two weeks the park will close for good.

A few state officials made some efforts to buy the park property or even the whole parcel.  But the owners have no interest in that.  Not only will they make more money chopping it up into individual multimillion-dollar homesites, but the new gated, golf-course community can boast a private lake.  They don’t want ordinary riffraff like you and me gallivanting around their exclusive neighborhood.  The developer will undoubtedly appreciate the millions of dollars Texas taxpayers have invested building utilities, roads, bridges, drainage, docks, playgrounds and other improvements, which they now get for free.

Aside from a few officials associated with the park service or the local area, state leaders have ignored the issue with a thunderous silence.  No one in government dares speak up to protect the park, as that would go against two interests most Texas lawmakers hold sacred:  Private property rights and big energy companies.   Any effort to acquire privately owned land “for the people” could be portrayed as socialist, or even (gasp!) environmentalist —  political suicide in this ultraconservative state.  Heck, they might even encourage privatization of the state parks - economic development, yay!  I wrote to my state representative and senator, Craig Goldman and Phil King.  Neither bothered to reply.

Are the rest of our state parks safe?  The Dallas Morning News reported that 14 other state parks are also leased, meaning the landlord could potentially sell the land and evict them in a similar manner.  Leased parks include Cedar Hill, Lake Whitney, Lake Ray Roberts, Eisenhower, Lake Tawakoni, and Lake Whitney State Parks.  Each of these is within a two-hour drive from the DFW Metroplex, making them attractive targets for real estate developers.  I’m sure the precedent set by Fairfield Lake has left other developers foaming at the mouth to get their hands on other state parks. Do these parks have 120-day eviction clauses? We need to know.  We need to demand that our state officials to review those contracts now, and start making plans to ensure the remaining parks are protected in perpetuity.  Fairfield Lake is a harrowing cautionary tale of how badly these “public-private partnerships” can go awry.