By Marty Kufus
Wilson County News
PLEASANTON — The Texas Water Development Board is offering free meters to ground-water districts for voluntary use by select irrigators in a push to firm up agricultural data in regional and state water planning.
"One of the things that crops up anywhere you go is, how much water goes to agriculture?" Kraig Gallimore, a field representative of the water development board, said Thursday.
His audience was the board of directors of the four-county Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District. The board was holding its monthly meeting, during which it also set a property-tax rate and approved its budget for fiscal 2002-3.
In the past, when the state water board needed consumption data on ag irrigation, it combined its own best estimates with those solicited from soil-conservation service offices across the state, Gallimore said.
"We collectively were guessing pretty darn close — but, it doesn’t hold up in court," he added.
Statewide, with the demand of "municipal" consumption often taking the forefront in long-range water planning, it is important that agriculture can defend its claim to the resource, according to discussion.
Under the proposal, a ground-water district would solicit the cooperation of all irrigators in a locally selected area no smaller than 4 square miles.
The district’s technical staff would install the meters on the irrigational wells and/or pivots, and gather the water-use figures for regular reports to Austin. It also would measure and report local rainfall.
At the end of the 10-year project, participating farmers would keep the meters. For its trouble — field and office time, and fuel — the district might receive some money from the water board.
Knowing almost exactly how much water is used, by acre and crop, is "a good management tool" for the farmer, Gallimore added.
Even so, the water board’s offer has not been received well everywhere.
In the Panhandle, he said, it was greeted with open hostility. The only way it was accepted there was through guarantees of anonymity of the participants.
A former Crosby County cotton farmer himself, Gallimore said he understands that "knee-jerk reaction."
"Here comes a guy with a pickup full of irrigation meters; ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you,’" he remarked humorously.
The Evergreen board took no formal action. However, its staff will study the water board’s proposal.
President Ken Stephens of Atascosa County and a full board comprising Vice President Paul Bordovsky of Karnes, Secretary/Treasurer William Ruple of Atascosa, and directors Clifton Stacy and Blaine Schorp of Frio, Fabian Jendrusch of Karnes, and Steve Snider, Mark Mitchell, and Darrell Brownlow of Wilson County attended.
The board voted Thursday to table for another 30 days a June petition signed by 116 southern Bexar County residents wanting the Evergreen district’s annexation.
Evergreen annexation into southern Bexar had been voted down by a narrow margin in a May election.
The additional 30-day delay will allow General Manager Mike Mahoney and a committee of four board members to continue negotiating a "water-resource protection and management agreement" with the San Antonio Water System.
"Definitely," Mahoney replied to a question about progress. "We’re moving forward" in work with SAWS.
A formal agreement between the Evergreen and SAWS — perhaps including the Bexar Metropolitan Water District, someday — is viewed as a possible alternative to Evergreen annexation into a portion of southern Bexar County, which currently is part of no ground-water district.
The area is important to SAWS because of its $200 million aquifer storage and recovery (and limited production) project under construction there, just across the Wilson and Atascosa lines.
Some neighboring residents, though, are worried about possible effects on their wells.
Last week, board member Brownlow insisted SAWS provide "more detail about operational considerations" of its aquifer storage and recovery.
For the purveyor merely to say it intends to inject Edwards Aquifer water in times of plenty into storage in (the southern-Bexar portion of) the Carrizo Aquifer, he said, is insufficient.
Mahoney said he would be interested in knowing which "triggers" SAWS will use in gauging an Edwards surplus.
Susan Butler, SAWS’ director of resource development, likened the construction of the ASR project to building a new model of car. "You don’t print the owner’s manual until the car is almost off the assembly line," she said.
Mike Brinkmann, the manager of the ASR project, accompanied her to the Evergreen meeting.
After several minutes of discussion with the Evergreen board, the two agreed SAWS could provide more operational information during work on the interlocal agreement.
The Evergreen’s property-tax rate in Wilson, Karnes, Atascosa, and Frio counties will be 1.70 cents per $100 valuation in the new tax year.
That rate should bring in about the same revenue as the previous year’s rate of 1.74 cents.
The board approved a budget totaling $694,950. It takes effect Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.
It anticipates property-tax revenue to total $471,679 (with a 96-percent collection). By county, that is $183,014 in Wilson; $181,041, Atascosa; $58,436, Frio; and, $49,188, Karnes.
The Evergreen’s new budget lists expenditures of $85,000 in cost sharing and $175,000 in grant funds for the South Texas Weather Modification Association.
It now operates in 10 counties to encourage rainfall: Bandera, Medina, and southern Bexar (these at the request of the Edwards Aquifer Authority), Live Oak, McMullen, Bee, and the Evergreen’s four member counties.
Pleasanton’s municipal airport is the home base. The staff meteorologist’s office and radar system and two of the single-engine aircraft are located there.
Of the other two planes, one is hangared at Stinson airfield in San Antonio and one at Kenedy’s municipal airport.
Alerted by National Weather Service reports and radar to the approach of clouds with the right characteristics for "seeding," planes are flown into the formations while burning silver-iodide flares mounted under their wings, an Evergreen official explained.
However, the aircraft are grounded ahead of any weather that could produce flooding, he added.
The radar screen (when in use during cloud seeding) and weather reports from the 10 counties can be viewed at the association’s Web site: www.southtexasweathermodification.com.
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