Denison and Sherman would be able to lean on each other's water systems in an emergency under a design contract the City Council takes up Monday.
The item, on the consent agenda for the Oct. 19 meeting, would hire Plummer Associates for up to $311,534 to investigate, engineer and design two connections between the cities' systems and to support Denison through construction.
According to the staff memo, the connections would stay closed and be maintained regularly, and would be opened only in an emergency, such as when a city's supply or a key part of its system is compromised.
The project grew out of a joint Denison and Sherman "Partners in Progress" meeting earlier this year, the memo says.
A feasibility study by Plummer, dated October 2025 and included in the packet, found a link workable but said the details matter: some options for sending Denison water south could require added pumping or limits on demand, while Sherman's Northwest pressure zone was judged the best source for supplying Denison.
The engineers also recommended testing for corrosion risk at the chosen sites because mixing water from the two systems could raise corrosion concerns.
The work is budgeted in Denison's 2027 utility capital plan. The memo says a later interlocal agreement will spell out how the two cities split the cost.
Paying for repairs that could not wait
In a separate vote, the council is asked to ratify $1,170,989.99 in emergency work from the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, all of it finished or nearly finished. Staff said each job was beyond what the budget's small contingency could absorb:
