Smoke curled lazily from the kitchen, carrying the sweet weight of brown sugar and spice through the room. An elk and two whitetail deer stared down from the wall, their glass eyes fixed above a Texas flag and a scattering of wooden crosses. Around a circular laminate table, the group of locals bent over a printout titled “The City of Canton: Annual Water Usage vs. Availability Report.” Across from me, behind polarized Ray-Bans, a big beard, and a lattice of tattoos, sat a pitmaster named John Borgstedt. Known to locals by his Facebook username, “BBQ and a Prayer,” he was ready to explain how the fight for his livelihood had become inseparable from the fight against the reservoir and the leaders he believes are selling out their own people.
As John’s wife, Virginia Borgstedt, set plates of steaming barbecue chicken and paprika-dusted potato salad on the table, John began to talk. His story reaches back to a childhood scarred by abuse and years in and out of prison before he rebuilt his life through faith and grit. An oilfield explosion later shattered his body and ended his work in the industry. So he set up on Interstate 20 with a cooler and a cutting board on his tailgate, selling barbecue to whoever stopped.
Here in Van Zandt County, which is an hour east of Dallas and stretches across long fenceline miles of pasture and pine, the proposal to build a new reservoir on Grand Saline Creek ignited a fight over land rights, public trust, and the future of rural East Texas. City officials argue the project is necessary to secure Canton’s long-term water supply, but residents say it’s built on inflated population estimates, misleading data, and a failure to follow state transparency laws. Now, landowners, local organizers, and state lawmakers are pushing back, insisting the reservoir threatens generational homes and livelihoods.
