Rural-aquifer board challenges regional data |
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| By Marty Kufus JOURDANTON — Production goals in a regional water-planning “option” for large-scale rural pumping of the Carrizo Aquifer — mostly for San Antonio’s future use — are excessive and possibly harmful, and will be challenged, local ground-water officials agreed last week. The board of the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District authorized its staff June 14 to prepare its own estimates of the Carrizo Aquifer’s “safe yield.” Of particular concern, according to discussion at last week’s Evergreen workshop, is Wilson County’s proposed role as a regional aquifer-water exporter and the effects on local-use water wells. The Evergreen’s board will meet June 27 and discuss and vote on the safe-yield figures if they are ready. If approved, the figures will be submitted the next day to regional water planners at their “alternative plans” workshop. It is to begin at 9 a.m., at the San Antonio River Authority. (See related story, this issue.) As long as there is a local Carrizo-pumping option “on the [regional] table,” Evergreen General Manager Mike Mahoney said, “that number should be ours.” Using computer modeling by consultant HDR Engineering, Inc., the Evergreen is trying to calculate the ground water in storage; also, forecast the future effects of local pumping, and of possible pumping for export, on the Carrizo’s shallow “outcrop,” confined portions of the aquifer, and the thicker “down-dip.” The Evergreen officials are revising their management plan. The state-created district comprises Wilson, Karnes, Atascosa, and Frio counties. Last week, Evergreen President Ken Stephens of Atascosa County presided over directors Paul Bordovsky of Karnes, Clifton Stacy and Blaine Schorp of Frio, Doug Brownlow, Mark Mitchell, and Steve Snider of Wilson, and Fabian Jendrusch of Karnes. Director Williams Ruple of Atascosa County was absent. Region L The state-appointed South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group represents a 20- 1/2-county “Region L” that includes the four Evergreen counties and Bexar County. Mahoney is one of the Regional L group’s 21 voting members. The regional plan’s first version, or “initially prepared” plan, is due in October at the Texas Water Development Board in Austin, as are those of 15 other regions. “I have been pretty vocal” in telling the Region L group, Mahoney said last week, “that just because that [Carrizo pumping] number is in the regional water plan doesn’t mean it will be acceptable to this board.” Only the day before, in San Antonio, regional planners discussed the possibility of disparities between their plan and a ground-water district’s management plan. The Evergreen currently allows the export of ground water out of the district: up to 1 acre-foot per acre of land per year. The export fee is 17-cents per 1,000 gallons. (An acre-foot equals 325,860 gallons, or enough for around eight people a year.) However, there are indications the export provision will be changed, according to a draft of the revised management plan. The Evergreen never has received an application for a permit for a water-export well. But the officials seem to regard that as only a matter of when and not if. In recent conversations and discussions, Evergreen officials have described scenarios in which the San Antonio Water System and Bexar Metropolitan Water District — after buying local land, or leasing or purchasing water rights — would apply for permits for production wells and export. Option CZ-10C A Region L “option” (potential water project) proposes the pumping and export to Bexar County, from Wilson and Gonzales counties, of up to 50,000 acre-feet total by the year 2010, according to planning reports. By the year 2040, the production would be 75,000 acre-feet, according to HDR Engineering’s reports to the regional group. That option, which was based on ground-water data from the state water-development board, is called CZ-10C. Following the Evergreen’s workshop last week, Mahoney estimated that Wilson County’s share of full production in that Region L option is 40,000 to 42,000 acre-feet a year; further, for planning purposes Wilson also is being assigned half of the production goal in a 20,000 acre-foot-a-year project planned by Schertz and Seguin, which will drill wells in Gonzales County. ‘A fight’? Although not speaking directly to regional planning, HDR engineer Larry Land told the Evergreen board last week that “it’s your responsibility to say how much is too much [pumping] or how much is OK.” Land presented a report, “Ground Water Availability in the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District.” Among other things, it examined well-water levels in the Carrizo Aquifer locally from 1910 and 1994. The workshop’s consensus: Coupled with the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer system’s relatively slow recharge, local-use pumping alone is gradually lowering water levels in the district. In northern Atascosa, Stephens remarked, “all the 100-foot wells I knew as a kid are dry.” After Land’s report, Evergreen officials and members of the Wilson County Water Action Project discussed another specter: Would large-scale pumping of water release the pressure on shallow pockets of petroleum and brine, allowing them to intrude into the Carrizo? “We need to look at these potential contaminations,” said director Snider, and “stop a chain reaction.” A developer, engineer Land added, “would want to identify these booby traps,” too, before making an investment in water production. Later, director Stacy suggested the Evergreen submit its figures of safe yield to the regional group, and urge it to seriously look “at this Kirk Patterson thing …” (San Antonio water activists Kirk and Carol Patterson have created one of the five “alternative” plans now under consideration by regional planners: an Edwards Aquifer “recharge and recirculation” scheme.) Stacy added the Edwards Aquifer is the key to the problem, and “they [regional planners] don’t need to fool with us.” A moment later, he remarked that regional planners “are dictating” water-supply figures that could lead to “a fight with us.” Mahoney reported he is drawing up an interlocal agreement for a “Carrizo-management” alliance. It would comprise the Evergreen and ground-water districts in Guadalupe, Gonzales, and Medina counties and the three-county “Winter Garden” district. He explained that a special board, comprising two directors from each district, would examine management plans for compatibility and the “impacts on neighbors” of districts’ pumping. |