By Marty Kufus
October 31, 2001
Wilson County News

SANDY OAKS - Hoping to dissuade a rural ground-water district from holding an annexation vote in southern Bexar County, the San Antonio Water System last week proposed "cooperative management" of the Carrizo Aquifer's outcrop there.     
 SAWS wants to "find a way to make all landowners far better off than they would be if you were regulated" by a district, Susan Butler, SAWS' director of resource development, said.
      She gave prepared remarks, then fielded audience members' questions - some, slightly hostile - during a public hearing conducted Thursday evening by the board of the Evergreen Underground Water Conserva-tion District.
      Butler asked the district to hold off a few months on any annexation to allow SAWS to "work diligently and in good faith" to set up mitigation (damage control) and well-monitoring programs.
      The 10-point agreement between SAWS and the Evergreen, she said, "may be a 'door number 3'" alternative for southern Bexar County.
      About 120 people crowded into the Sandy Oaks Volunteer Fire Department's station for the 70-minute hearing.
      Beginning this summer, some southern-Bexar residents signed petitions asking for annexation by the Evergreen. Its jurisdiction now is Wilson, Atascosa, Karnes, and Frio counties.
      The Evergreen's board took no action Thursday, and said little.
      President Ken Stephens afterward remarked, "We'll have something to say Tuesday [Oct. 30]."
      That morning, the board was to have held its second, and final, public hearing. It would vote whether to formally accept the petitions and hold a Feb. 2 election.

      SAWS owns about 3,000 acres in the southern-most tip of Bexar County.
      It plans in 2003 to begin pumping up to 30,000 acre-feet (9.78 billion gallons) annually from a Carrizo outcrop in southern Bexar and continue production through 2010 while major, metropolitan water projects are built elsewhere.
      Meanwhile, the injection of wet-season Edwards Aquifer water into the Carrizo outcrop, for withdrawal during drought and peak summer demands, would begin in that decade.
      Some residents in nearby areas of Wilson and Atascosa, as well as Evergreen officials, have expressed strong concerns about the possible "draw down" on other wells once SAWS begins pumping water from up to 30 wells.
      SAWS plans to spend about $215 million on the dual project.
      The Evergreen's rules - including water-pumping limits and a prohibition against aquifer storage and recovery - would significantly impede those plans if applied in southern Bexar County, officials have said.

      Fourteen spectators, including members of the Wilson County Water Action Project, asked to speak Thursday evening. The majority urged annexation by the Evergreen.
      "I think we should beg these men to take us in," one local resident said, pointing at the Evergreen's board members, seated at a long table.
      "I'm excited you folks want to get into the Evergreen district," said Wilson County dairy farmer Tom Ray. He said SAWS' project is "three miles, as the crow flies, from my wells."
      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.

      Under SAWS' proposal last week, the Evergreen would:
      *Agree "to not annex territory within Bexar County."
      *Change its rules to allow aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) within its jurisdiction.
      Under the proposal, SAWS would:
      *Agree "to implement, fund, and manage a well-mitigation program within the affected area that will monitor and mitigate water-level impacts to existing homes and farms caused directly by increased and decreasing water levels resulting from the operation of the SAWS ASR project or production."
      *Manage "its production from the Carrizo Aquifer."
      SAWS would limit it to no more than 30,000 acre-feet a year for 2003 to 2010 "and ultimately convert these dual-use facilities to [ASR] for the long term. A long-term production average shall be limited to no more than 2 acre-feet per acre commencing in the year 2010." (That figure is the Evergreen's current, annual limit on production - non-household - wells.)
      The Evergreen and SAWS would, under the proposal, "jointly install or refurbish monitoring wells to verify existing and future water-level and water-quality changes to adjacent wells."
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