Regents Approve New Water Supply for Growing Texas A&M-Rellis Campus
BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Thursday approved a new water well and storage system at Texas A&M-RELLIS in Bryan, sized for about 15 to 20 years of projected water demand as research, teaching, workforce training and industry work on the campus grow.
The Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute, whose new building is under construction on the RELLIS campus, is an important part of that growth. The board appropriated $14.2 million for the well and storage system as the third piece of the $205.5 million institute project it has cleared for construction this year. Construction will start in December and is scheduled to finish in March 2028, two months before the institute moves into its new building.
The well fixes a problem that has grown as fast as the campus. A&M-RELLIS still depends on the water system and elevated storage tank built for the Army airfield that once occupied the site, and demand has outrun both. Planners sized the new system for the classrooms, laboratories, workforce training centers and industry partners called for in the campus master plan, so A&M-RELLIS won’t need another major water upgrade in the near term.
The new well will reach about 3,200 feet underground, more than half a mile, and pump up to 2,800 gallons a minute. It can produce up to 1,934 acre-feet of water a year, about 630 million gallons. Roughly 1.6 miles of 16-inch pipe will carry that water to a new cooling tower and a 500,000-gallon ground storage tank, which will feed the 1 million-gallon water tower regents approved in September. The well supplies the water, and the tower stores it and provides the pressure to move it across campus.
Board Chairman Robert Albritton said the board chose to build for decades of growth, not just the next project.
“A&M-RELLIS has become a place where students, researchers and private companies work side by side, and the Semiconductor Institute is going to bring a lot more of that,” Albritton said. “Every one of those labs and classrooms needs water. This board would rather build for the next 20 years today than keep patching a system built for an Army airfield.”
The overall institute project is paid for with $157.4 million in state general revenue and $48.1 million in Permanent University Fund bond proceeds.
The A&M System broke ground on the institute’s building in April. It is designed as a national shared-use facility where researchers, students and industry partners will work on chip research, design, fabrication and workforce training.
Chancellor Glenn Hegar said the water system is the kind of investment that makes everything else on the campus possible.
“Nobody tours a campus to see the well,” Hegar said. “But every lab, classroom and training center out there depends on it, from the Semiconductor Institute to programs we haven’t even started yet. Getting this right now means our students and researchers at RELLIS have room to grow for the next 20 years.”
About The Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest and most impactful higher education systems in the country, with an annual budget of $9.1 billion. Its statewide network includes 12 universities, a comprehensive health science center, eight state agencies, Texas A&M-Fort Worth and the Texas A&M-RELLIS Campus. The A&M System also plays a direct role in U.S. national security as a member of the teams that manage and operate Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Pantex Plant for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The A&M System serves approximately 184,000 students and reaches millions more through research, service and outreach programs each year. With nearly $1.6 billion in annual research expenditures, the A&M System fuels innovation, supports communities and drives Texas’ economy forward.
