A&M Regents Approve $14.22 Million Water Well at RELLIS in Bryan

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, meeting Nov. 12 in College Station, approved construction of a new well and on-campus storage works at Texas A&M-RELLIS in Bryan and appropriated $14,220,000 for that work, according to the system’s official news release and the Nov. 12 board binder. Community Impact, writing after the meeting, said the board approved the $14.2 million water-well system. Official minutes had not been opened for this report, and neither the release nor Community Impact published a roll-call, so this account does not treat the vote as unanimous.

The official binder lists the work as the RELLIS Water Well Infrastructure portion of the Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute/Infrastructure/Equipment Project, Project No. 01-3418, in Bryan, Texas. It is the third sub-project in that program. The board approved the Semiconductor Institute building and storm drainage for construction in February 2026 and raised the overall program budget to $205,500,000. It approved the RELLIS Water Tower Replacement portion in September 2026. The binder says the board had already appropriated $191,280,000 to the program; the new $14,220,000 appropriation brings the appropriated total to $205,500,000, our arithmetic from those official figures.

The overall $205,500,000 program budget, the binder says, is funded with $48,062,000 in Permanent University Fund debt proceeds and $157,438,000 in cash from general revenue. The official news release rounded those shares to $48.1 million and $157.4 million. For this well-and-storage portion alone, the briefing prices the work at $18,600,000. Of that, $2,800,000 would be shifted from leftover buyout savings and contingencies on earlier sub-projects, a shift the briefing says is needed because bid prices rose after the scope was expanded, including a larger well casing and a more powerful motor to keep the planned production rate as aquifer conditions decline.

What the campus is buying

The briefing describes a new domestic well, a transmission main, a cooling tower, and a ground storage tank. The well is to be about 3,200 feet deep and is planned to produce up to 1,934 acre-feet a year at 2,800 gallons per minute. About 8,428 linear feet of 16-inch pipe would carry water to the cooling tower and to a ground tank holding 500,000 gallons, which would be tied into a new elevated storage tank already approved as a separate sub-project. The official news release said that elevated tank is the 1 million-gallon water tower the regents approved in September. Work is slated to begin in December 2026 and to reach substantial completion in March 2028.

The briefing places RELLIS on the old Army Air Force Base site in Bryan and says the campus still uses the original water system and elevated tank built for the airfield, and that demand has gone beyond what that system can handle. Board Chairman Robert Albritton, in the official release, said, “Every one of those labs and classrooms needs water.” He said the board would rather size the system for the next two decades now than keep repairing a system built for an old airfield. Chancellor Glenn Hegar, in the same release, said, “Nobody tours a campus to see the well.” He said doing the work now would give students and researchers at RELLIS room to grow for the next two decades.

The official RELLIS Academic Alliance FAQ lists the campus physical address as 3100 TX-47, Bryan, Texas 77807, and says the 2,300-acre campus is in Bryan, next to State Highway 47 and Highway 21. This action is a university-system construction approval, not a Bryan City Council vote and not a new local school-district bond.

Related reading: Beeville Renews Drought Emergency, Approves $84,169 in Water Work.