By Marty Kufus
November 7, 2001
Wilson County News

PLEASANTON - Despite appeals from a state legislator, the San Antonio Water System, and the Bexar Metropolitan Water District, a rural ground-water board voted Oct. 30 to hold a February election on annexation in southern Bexar County. 
An outcrop of the Carrizo Aquifer extends there, and is the rural location of a SAWS water project under development.
      The board's vote was unanimous and without comment following a heavily attended public hearing at the Evergreen Underground Water Conser-vation District's headquarters.
      The directors voted to accept petitions signed by property owners in southern Bexar County and hold an election there on Feb. 2 "or the next uniform date."
      There were more than 92 signatures on the petitions, a staff member said.
      Board President Ken Stephens and Secretary William Ruple of Atascosa County, directors Mark Mitchell and Steve Snider of Wilson, Vice President Paul Bordovsky and Director Fabian Jendrsuch of Karnes, and directors Clifton Stacy and Blaine Schorp of Frio County attended. (It was announced at the meeting that Director Doug Brownlow of Wilson County had resigned citing "health concerns." He was appointed to the board by the governor, and had served about six years.)

      The Evergreen, created by the Legislature in 1965, manages the use of aquifers in Wilson, Atascosa, Karnes, and Frio counties.
      The area proposed for the Evergreen's annexation is roughly triangular. It is bounded by the Atascosa and Wilson county lines on the south; S.H. 16 on the west; Loop 1604 on the north; and, U.S. 181 on the east.
      Petition-drive organizer Craig Knapp has estimated the area has 8,000 or more residents.
      The San Antonio Water System owns about 3,000 acres in the tip of southern Bexar County. It has ongoing plans for a $215 million dual-purpose project: production pumping of up to 30,000 acre-feet (9.78 billion gallons) annually from 2003 to 2010, and the eventual storage in the Carrizo of Edwards Aquifer water in times of plenty for withdrawal during drought.
      The Evergreen's current rules, if applied in southern Bexar County, would severely limit SAWS' pumping and prohibit aquifer storage and recovery (ASR).
      Last month, SAWS proposed a 10-point "cooperative management agreement" with the Evergreen.
      Under it, SAWS would pledge to mitigate any harm to neighboring wells from its southern-Bexar pumping; monitor aquifer levels with the Evergreen; and, reduce its pumping to the Evergreen's limits beginning in 2010.
      The Evergreen's annual production-well cap is 2 acre-feet per acre of land. An acre-foot is 325,860 gallons.
      Susan Butler, SAWS' director of resource development, last week repeated her request that the Evergreen's board wait a few months to give the proposed partnership a chance.
      She made the offer Oct. 25 during the Evergreen's first public hearing, held in southern Bexar County at the Sandy Oaks Volunteer Fire Department (Oct. 31 Wilson County News).
      Her proposal ultimately had little effect on the Evergreen's board.
From Austin and San Antonio: Wait
      Neither did a faxed letter, received late the afternoon of Oct. 29, from state Rep. Robert Puente of District 119.
      "I am concerned the annexation process is moving ahead without giving all affected parties time to consider the available options," he wrote to Evergreen President Stephens.
      "This process also seems to be an attempt to thwart a water project that SAWS is developing. ... The utility has already made a substantial investment in this project and it is my understanding that SAWS has offered a mitigation plan that would offer landowners in the area more protection than annexation," said Puente, whose district comprises part of Bexar County.
      He urged the Evergreen "to delay calling for a vote" to allow for a review.
      A senior official at the Bexar Metropolitan Water District, which also has wells in southern Bexar County, asked the Evergreen to wait.
      "I have spoken with [SAWS President Eugene] Habiger and he has accepted, at least in concept, that we be a third party to the inter-local agreement, as BexarMet has a great responsibility to provide water and service to this area as its purveyor," General Manager Tom Moreno wrote Oct. 25.
      "We also agree with SAWS that annexation of this area by [the Evergreen] at this time would be premature," he said.

      Some of the annexation drive's most enthusiastic supporters are in neighboring Wilson County.
      Residents of the western part of the county, in particular, have expressed deep concerns that SAWS' production pumping nearby would lower water levels in their wells. SAWS engineers have admitted they lack conclusive data, so far, on the extent of any future "draw down."
      At last week's hearing, Wilson County Judge Marvin Quinney, Stockdale Mayor Tony Malik, and Floresville Mayor Raymond Ramirez said their governmental bodies already had passed resolutions in support of the southern-Bexar annexation.
      Another Wilson County resident, regional water planner Darrell Brownlow, reminded the Evergreen's board that SAWS' southern-Bexar production proposal was not listed in the "Region L" plan that was sent to Austin in January.
      "The 30,000 acre-feet of pumping SAWS is proposing is more than one and a half times (150 percent) the amount of water that Wilson County uses on an annual basis - the entire county," he said.
      "Mitigation," he added, "is a code word for long, expensive legal battles in which the poor land owner finally gets tired of fighting it."
      "In many ways, SAWS is doing to the people of south Bexar County and the Evergreen district the same thing the 'catfish farmer' did to them," Brownlow said.
      After the board's vote, petition-drive organizer Knapp remarked: "I'm very happy; I'm ecstatic. I think this is a home run" for residents in the area.
      The annexation issue's ballot will ask voters whether they accept the district's tax: 1.74 cents per $100 property valuation. It also will list any candidates for two seats on the Evergreen's board.
      An early version of this story was available Oct. 30 at www.wilsoncountynews.com.
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