Woodbine SUD Raises Monthly Water Rates Starting in July 2026

Woodbine Special Utility District customers around Gainesville will pay a little more for water starting this summer, and the reasons behind the increase say as much about the future of water in North Texas as they do about one district's budget.

The district's board voted June 11 to raise monthly rates, effective in July, with the change first landing on bills mailed around the first of August. For a typical household the increase is modest: at the district's average use of about 5,000 gallons a month, the bill rises $3.67, from roughly $48 to about $52.

Two things are pushing the bill up. The district raised the fixed monthly charge every customer pays before any water is metered, a couple of dollars for a typical home. And a groundwater fee the district collects on behalf of the state nearly tripled, from 11 cents to 30 cents per 1,000 gallons.

That second charge is the more telling one. Woodbine keeps none of it; it collects the fee and forwards it to the North Texas Groundwater Conservation District, the agency the Legislature created in 2009 to manage the aquifers beneath Cooke, Denton and Collin counties. Those aquifers, the Trinity and the Woodbine, the latter sharing the district's name, have been drawn down for generations. Texas Water Development Board data show groundwater levels across the region have fallen by hundreds of feet over decades of municipal pumping, and state models project the Trinity will keep declining for decades to come. The fees a district like North Texas GCD charges are how the state pays to monitor and stretch a resource that is not refilling as fast as it is used.

Woodbine's increase is also not happening in isolation. Water utilities across Texas have been raising rates through 2025 and 2026, from Carrollton and Forney at about 7.5 percent to El Paso at roughly 12 percent, as systems confront aging pipes, higher operating costs, and the expense of finding new supply for a fast-growing state. Woodbine's increase, a little under 8 percent, sits squarely in that range.

For customers, the near-term effect is small: a few dollars a month, starting in August. The longer-term signal is harder to miss. The price of water in North Texas is drifting upward, driven less by any single district's decision than by the slow arithmetic of more people drawing on older systems and shrinking aquifers. The district, for its part, says it studied its finances before the vote and needs the added revenue to keep pace with the rising cost of materials, maintenance, and the everyday work of running a dependable system.

Customers with questions about the new rates can call the district at 940-668-8337.