By Marty Kufus
Wilson County News

SAN ANTONIO — Forty-eight years from now there won’t be quite as many people drinking, flushing, and washing in south-central Texas as regional planners had allowed for in their 2001 water plan, according to new projections released Thursday.

Six hundred fifty-five thousand and seventy-nine — that’s the downward adjustment now proposed for the 2050 population of the water-planning region.

The revised 2050-population projection (in rounded numbers) is 3.87 million for a 20 1/2-county region dominated by thirsty San Antonio.

The decrease is "some of the better news I’ve heard in a while," a member of the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group said after Thursday’s presentation by a researcher with the Texas Water Development Board.

On the other hand, the state’s computerized calculations — now being released to local governments and water-user groups for critique — draw a startling picture of what might be in store for Wilson County.

With an average growth of about 27 percent per decade, the county’s population — 32,408 in the 2000 Census — would cross the 100,000 mark sometime between 2040 and 2050.

It already will have left neighboring Atascosa County in the dust by 2020, projections now suggest.

If these growth predictions are cause for celebrations at any local Chambers of Commerce or economic development groups, they are tempered by the realities of water: With population increases come greater demands on Wilson County’s primary — and finite — source of potable water: the Carrizo Aquifer.

The sand-and-gravel aquifer has a slow recharge. Further, it already is widely tapped across South Texas by municipal water systems, rural water supply corporations, and private wells’ operators. The Carrizo also is a minor component of San Antonio’s long-range water plans.

State water-board researchers and regional water planners readily admit it is not humanly possible to predict future populations with great accuracy.

But, these figures probably are the best available now.

The projections began with the federal 2000 Census’ figures, as refined at the Texas State Data Center at Texas A&M University.

"2000’s [Census] wasn’t perfect … but overall, it was a lot more complete than 1990’s," Assistant Director Dan Hardin, of the water board’s resources-planning division, told the "Region L" water planners Thursday.

Since last year’s release of 2000 Census data, state researchers have been recalculating population figures for use by Texas’ 16 regional planning groups in their 2006 water plans.

Their 2001 plans (which the water board blended into a 2002 state plan) relied heavily on the 1990 Census and state projections made in the mid-90s.

Recent data have been entered into computer programs that factor in birth and death rates for the genders, age groups, and four major ethnic categories. This produces 680 "cohort" combinations of population sub-groups, Hardin explained.

Lastly, any of three scenarios of counties’ "migration" — new residents arriving, others leaving — are agreed on by analysts at the water board, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Department of Agriculture, and Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

The economy is the major engine driving migrations, Hardin added.

The 20 1/2-county Region L had a 2000 population of 2.04 million, recent figures show. The region includes Wilson, Karnes, Atascosa, and Bexar counties.

Recent calculations based on the 2000 Census strongly suggest Bexar’s future populations were overestimated in the first round of water planning, which began in 1998.

For Bexar, state researchers now are forecasting a 2050 population of 2.37 million, replacing the previous projection of 3.08 million. The difference, for water-planning purposes, is a negative 711,431 as now proposed.

Some of the changes recommended for population projections in the 2006 regional water plan curve upward.

Several rural counties in Region L — Wilson and Karnes among them — were underestimated in the 2001 regional plan sent to Austin.

For Wilson, the numerical differences are significant. According to preliminary figures released last week:

oThe 2001 regional water plan used a year-2050 projection of 81,961.

However, Wilson County’s population now is projected to more than triple — reaching a calculated 106,373 residents — by 2050. The 2060 population is projected at 123,135.

The county’s 2000 Census population of 32,408 itself was the result of a 43-percent increase from 1990.

oWilson’s population would catch neighboring Atascosa County’s sometime between 2010 and 2020, when both would have approximately 50,000 residents.

Atascosa’s 2000 Census population was 38,628. That amounted to a 27-percent increase from 1990’s census. State researchers lately have projected Atascosa’s 2050 population at 69,320. The 2001 regional water plan used a figure of 71,988.

oLong-range projections for Wilson County imply a possible continuation of rural subdivisions’ growth. That is, in the coming decades a declining percentage of inhabitants will reside in the four existing municipalities: Floresville, La Vernia, Poth, and Stockdale.

Preliminary projections now suggest the four towns altogether will account for only 18.3 percent of Wilson County’s population — as calculated, a total of 19,528 of the county’s 106,373 — in 2050.

The four towns in 2000 altogether held 10,047 residents, or 31 percent of the county’s population.

Just to the south, Karnes County, whose 2000 Census population totaled 15,446, is projected to see modest increases across the coming decades.

By 2020, Karnes County’s population will have risen to 18,830, according to recent projections. By 2050, it will total 23,256 people. The 2001 regional water plan allowed for 19,353 people by 2050.

In Karnes County the "involuntary immigration" of some 3,300 prison inmates accounts for a "special population" whose number is highly predictable, Hardin added.

The occupancy of prisons, like military barracks, college dormitories, and nursing homes, tends to be stable, he said.

Region L’s 21 nonpaid voting members represent 11 broad interest groups across Atascosa, Bexar, Caldwell, Calhoun, Comal, DeWitt, Dimmit, Frio, Goliad, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Karnes, Kendall, La Salle, Medina, Refugio, Uvalde, Victoria, Wilson, and Zavala counties and part of Hays County.

The diverse region has three major river basins: Nueces, San Antonio, and Guadalupe; four major aquifers: Trinity, Edwards, Carrizo, and Gulf Coast; and, bays and estuaries along the Gulf of Mexico.
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