By Marty Kufus
Wilson County News

The Wilson County Commis-sioners’ Court went on record Monday supporting a petition drive by some southern Bexar County landowners who want a rural aquifer district to annex their area and block a metropolitan water project.

At the urging of County Judge Marvin Quinney, commissioners Wayne Stroud, Bobby Lynn, and John Olenick approved a resolution “supporting the annexation petition from south Bexar County residents to join the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District.”

Commissioner Roger Lopez was absent.
“Is this something that will get Wilson and Bexar counties crossways?” County Attorney Russell Wilson asked before the vote.

“It may,” Quinney replied.

Wilson cautioned such an endorsement might be viewed as cross-border meddling unless local interests are affected, too.

Quinney said the planned pumping of an outcrop of the Carrizo Aquifer in southern Bexar (by the San Antonio Water System) could lower water levels in nearby wells in western Wilson County.

The commissioners’ court must “protect our people,” he said.

The Evergreen manages ground-water resources in Wilson, Atascosa, Karnes, and Frio counties.

Its rules, if also applied in extreme southern Bexar County, would significantly impede SAWS’ plans for production pumping and development of an aquifer storage and recovery system, officials have acknowledged.

SAWS owns about 3,000 acres in that area, and plans to begin production in 2003.

This “short term” pumping of up to 30,000 acre-feet a year from the Carrizo outcrop would help meet urban needs as major water projects elsewhere are being developed, SAWS representatives have said.

An acre-foot equals about 325,860 gallons.

After receiving a first installment of petitions at a meeting this summer, the Evergreen’s board tentatively set a Feb. 2 election in southern Bexar County (Aug. 22 Wilson County News).

It will hold the first of two public hearings this Thursday at 7 p.m., at the Sandy Oaks volunteer fire station. The board will hold the second public hearing Oct. 30 at the Evergreen’s offices in Pleasanton.

Board members then will vote whether to formally accept the petitions and schedule an election, as allowed by the Texas Water Code.

Quinney said Monday the Wilson County Water Action Project had urged the court to endorse the annexation drive in southern Bexar County.