By By Marty Kufus
Wilson County News
On April 17, the same day the Justice Department granted "pre-clearance" to the special election, about 100 early voters cast their ballots in southern Bexar County for or against annexation by a rural ground-water district.
Austin attorneys for the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District had received a fax that afternoon from Washington that they relayed to the district’s office in Pleasanton, a water-district employee confirmed.
Early voting had begun that morning, as scheduled. It brought out "a little over a hundred yesterday," district secretary Melissa Royal said Thursday.
Early voting occurs weekdays through April 30.
On April 16, the Evergreen board once again modified the southern-Bexar election plan.
There would be two — not one — early–voting locations: the Oak Island United Methodist Church, 3030 DeVilbiss Lane; and (the original site), Waterwood Park subdivision’s clubhouse, 4451 Hickory Haven.
Election day is Saturday, May 4.
Voting locations that day will be the Oak Island church, Waterwood Park, and the Shady Oaks Baptist Church, 24800 U.S. 281 South, officials agreed.
The area proposed for annexation, as the result of a summer petition drive by some southern-Bexar residents, is formed by the Atascosa and Wilson county lines to the south, S.H. 16 on the west, Loop 1604 on the north, and U.S. 181 on the east.
The Evergreen board last week cancelled a plan to place election-day ballot boxes and staffs on the campuses of three nearby school districts in southern Bexar that were having their own May 4 elections.
Officials at the Somerset Independent School District apparently had no problem with the arrangement.
However, on April 11 a school-board majority at the Southside ISD voted against a joint election with the Evergreen.
Also that day, an East Central official phoned to say his school district would not participate in an agreement to allow Evergreen voting there, Royal told her board.
This reportedly was on the advice of an attorney for East Central. It already had postponed its May 4 school-board election because of a federal lawsuit over the 2000 redistricting.
East Central officials were "not wanting to jeopardize their bond election," Royal told the Evergreen board. (That May 4 election proposes the sale of $25 million in bonds for the construction of two new campuses.)
The Evergreen staff and attorneys immediately began looking for other polling locations in southern Bexar County.
After the board approved those proposals last week, the information was relayed to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington as an amendment to the pre-clearance application.
The annexational election originally was scheduled for Feb. 2.
However, early voting was halted by a federal injunction in San Antonio over alleged voter disenfranchisement. Further, Evergreen paperwork apparently failed to reach the Justice Department because of a postal emergency in Washington, so the election failed to receive pre-clearance.
Evergreen President Ken Stephens of Atascosa County and a quorum of directors attended April 16’s lengthy meeting: Clifton Stacy of Frio, Steve Snider, Mark Mitchell, and Darrell Brownlow of Wilson, and Fabian Jendrusch of Karnes County.
Much of their time was spent in scrutiny of district-rule changes proposed by General Manager Mike Mahoney.
For the most part, they would bring the Evergreen’s ground-water management rules in line with state water laws, which saw some changes in the last Legislature, according to discussion.
The Evergreen board might adopt the changes in May or June, after a public hearing.
One of the proposed changes is of regional significance — and recalls Evergreen-board discussion of more than two years ago: the lifting of a prohibition against aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) in the four-county district.
ASR is the injection, via water wells, of potable water into an aquifer for storage until it is pumped back up (recovered) for use later.
Under the proposed change, aquifer storage and recovery would be possible by district permit.
The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission already requires permits before ASR injection wells may be drilled. The TNRCC’s requirements for a permit would serve as a model for the Evergreen’s, Mahoney explained.
The Evergreen proposal, if approved, would allow the injection of "compatible ground water" into the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer system.
During discussion, board members decided against allowing the injection of surface water — such as from rivers — even if it were treated to state drinking standards.
The total withdrawal of water in an ASR project would be limited to 90 percent of the total amount injected by a purveyor, according to discussion.
During their discussion of ASR, board and staff members frequently used the word "they."
The San Antonio Water System owns about 3,000 acres in extreme southern Bexar County. It plans to drill a total of 21 wells in an ASR project that eventually would be connected to the city by a 60-inch-diameter pipeline (whose design is nearing completion).
The costs of land, drilling, on-site equipment, pipeline, and system connections have been estimated at $215 million total.
Under SAWS’ proposal, wet months’ excess of Edwards Aquifer water would be piped south to its "Twin Oaks" site. There it would be injected into a small portion of the Carrizo Aquifer that extends into southern Bexar. In drought, the stored Edwards water would be brought up and piped back to the city.
"Cycle testing" of aquifer storage and recovery is scheduled for fall 2003, SAWS officials have said. The long-term goal is the storage of 22,500 acre-feet, or about 7.3 billion gallons. (An acre-foot equals 325,860 gallons.)
So far, SAWS has drilled four monitoring wells, as well as five ASR wells — which also could pump water directly from the Carrizo.
It was SAWS’ announcement in February 2001 of an add-on plan — to pump the Carrizo Aquifer as needed as an additional source for San Antonio — that led to the grass-roots petition drive and the current election.
Some southern-Bexar residents said they feared the pumping could "draw down," perhaps even ruin, their wells. There also are concerns about draw-down nearby in Atascosa and Wilson counties.
SAWS’ initially proposed pumping up to 30,000 acre-feet year, but later downsized it to 14,000 acre-feet annually if 2004 and 2005 bring severe drought (Jan. 9 Wilson County News).
Stopping short of outright influence of prospective voters, SAWS officials in recent months have said the Evergreen’s ban on ASR would be a major setback if annexation occurred in southern Bexar County. (The Evergreen also has a production-pumping limit — 2 acre-feet per acre of land per year — that might affect SAWS’ site in that event, too.)
Last week, Evergreen board member Mitchell remarked that a rule change in favor of ASR by permit would "lower the temperature all around."
During a break in the meeting, Mahoney acknowledged, "We’re trying to adopt a rule that would accommodate their [SAWS’] project … in the event that area is annexed."
More than a year before the water controversy in southern Bexar, the Evergreen board considered the potential benefits of aquifer storage and recovery performed with sound science.
In fall 1999, the district entered into an "interlocal agreement" with SAWS and the San Antonio River Authority for three phases of testing of an ASR project south of Bexar County, in Wilson and/or Atascosa.
That rural-metro discussion, however, came to an abrupt halt when SAWS’ southern-Bexar project added a Carrizo-pumping proposal.
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