By Marty Kufus
December 26, 2001
Wilson County News

PLEASANTON — The San Antonio Water System and the Bexar Metropolitan Water District have “banded together” to oppose annexation in southern Bexar County by the rural Evergreen ground-water district, its senior staff member said last week.
A recent “memorandum of understanding” between the two purveyors, for cooperative management of future pumping of the Carrizo Aquifer’s outcrop in southern Bexar, shows they “basically have banded together to fight the process” of annexation, Evergreen General Manager Mike Mahoney said.
“That’s all I get out of it [memorandum],” he told the board of the Evergreen Underground Water Conserva-tion District at its Dec. 18 meeting.
An election on annexation is scheduled for February in extreme southern Bexar County.
If the rural district annexed a portion of southern Bexar, its production-pumping limit — 2 acre-feet of water, per acre of land, per year — would have a significant effect on SAWS’ and any other purveyor’s plans for the Carrizo outcrop. (An acre-foot equals about 325,860 gallons.)
Also at the meeting, Mahoney announced that Gov. Rick Perry the day before had appointed Wilson County resident Darrell Brownlow to fill the Evergreen-board seat vacated by his father.
Doug Brownlow, who stepped down from the board for health reasons in October, had recommended his son for the governor-appointed position.
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini reportedly sponsored the nomination. It had the support of Wilson County Judge Marvin Quinney, too.
Self-employed geologist Darrell Brownlow is a “small business” representative to the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group. Mahoney also is a voting member of that 20 1/2-county group, as are senior representatives of SAWS and BexarMet, the two largest water purveyors in the region.
Evergreen President Ken Stephens of Atascosa County presided last week over directors Paul Bordovsky and Fabian Jendrusch of Karnes, Clifton Stacy and Blaine Schorp of Frio, and Mark Mitchell and Steve Snider of Wilson County. Director William Ruple of Atascosa County was absent.
Southern Bexar
The board formally approved an order setting the Feb. 2 election for annexation of a portion of extreme southern Bexar County and — if annexation is ratified — the election of two local directors.
Early voting will begin Jan. 16 and run through Jan. 29, the election order said.
Early and election-day voting will be conducted in the clubhouse of the Waterwood Park subdivision, located off Interstate-37 along Priest-Mathis Road.
The area proposed for annexation is formed 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.
The southern-most tip of Bexar County is the site of SAWS’ planned $215 million “Twin Oaks” aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) and water-production facility over the Carrizo outcrop. The site occupies some 3,000 acres.
This summer, dozens of southern-Bexar residents petitioned the Evergreen for annexation. Spokesmen for the petitioning residents said they feared SAWS’ future pumping of the outcrop would “draw down” the water levels in their own wells.
SAWS’ representatives publicly have pledged the use of good science in their southern-Bexar project, as well as the funding of “mitigation” (damage control) if there is harm to neighboring wells. SAWS has proposed pumping up to 30,000 acre-feet (9.78 billion gallons) annually from the outcrop, from year 2003 to 2010.
SAWS representatives unsuccessfully asked the Evergreen board to postpone an election in favor of trying a water-management partnership.
Memorandum
Earlier this month, SAWS’ board approved a memorandum of understanding with BexarMet, which reportedly has about 5,000 customer accounts in southern Bexar.
The document calls for the creation of a “detailed future agreement relating to production of Carrizo Aquifer water in south Bexar County and delivering such supply throughout the [two] service areas.”
It also said BexarMet and SAWS would develop and proportionately fund a mitigative program in southern Bexar for “potential adverse effects” on neighboring water wells “existing and operational as of December 2001.”
Mitigation would include the lowering of wells’ pumps “should the water levels drop”; the deepening of wells or drilling of new wells; or, the provision of “access to potable-water service from a local purveyor.”
BexarMet already has spent “more than $23 million in infrastructure” in its southern- Bexar service area, while SAWS has spent “over $20 million of a $215 million” dual-use project there, a copy of the memorandum noted.
‘Dirty deeds’?
The stakes seem to be high.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of vehicles election day hauling people to the poll,” Mahoney remarked to his board last week. “There are forces that are working against the election process.”
He added that “after the first of the year we’ll see more and more things happen,” perhaps even “dirty deeds” on behalf of metropolitan water interests.
The general manager described as “pretty silly” and “essentially BS” a critical letter from an attorney hired by SAWS to review the petition drive and the Evergreen board’s scheduling of a special election.
A point-counterpoint exchange occurred recently involving Texas’ water code, the Evergreen district’s own enabling legislation, and legislative intent in recent water issues.
On one side of the exchange was San Antonio lawyer Russell Johnson, representing SAWS; on the other, Austin lawyer Douglas Caroom, representing the Evergreen district.
A Nov. 27 letter from Johnson said his firm’s “review indicates serious fundamental errors potentially affecting the validity of the annexation process currently underway.”
The Evergreen is overstepping its legal authority, the lawyer said. He also challenged the legality of the Evergreen’s intention to annex only a “territory” and not the whole of Bexar County.
Further, Johnson claimed that since SAW had not participated in the landowners’ petition drive, its land could not be included in the issue.
He challenged the Evergreen’s use of highways and county lines as boundaries in its legal description of the area considered for annexation. The area must be described “by metes and bounds or by lot and block number,” Johnson wrote.
“We have serious concerns regarding SAWS’ rights with regard to the investment SAWS has undertaken in the area the [Evergreen] district now seeks to regulate,” he warned. “The district’s intended annexation of SAWS’ property will have a significant impact upon SAWS, and SAWS therefore intends to protect its rights regarding such investments.”
In his Dec. 4 reply, Caroom cited his own legal interpretations in an attempt to rebut each of Johnson’s criticisms.
Caroom concluded that “the district remains assured that it has full legal authority to conduct annexation proceedings pursuant to Chapter 36 of the [Texas] Water Code, and that the proceedings presently underway comply with that chapter.”
Mahoney called Johnson’s arguments “a stall tactic” and said the election should go forward.
He and board members also dismissed, as a possible delaying ploy, a Dec. 14 letter from Bexar County Commissioner Robert Tejeda, precinct 1, requesting additional voting sites.
Calling it an “important matter for my constituents,” Tejeda asked for two more sites: one at the Southside ISD’s Alternative School at 20110 Pleasanton Rd., and one at the Ata-Bexar VFD’s station at 22580 Pleasanton Rd.
Mahoney said the Waterwood Park site already is “pre-cleared” and in use for local voting.
The alternative school Tejeda suggested, he continued, is not even located in the area proposed for annexation, and the fire station has not been used for voting since 1998.
Tejeda also sent a copy of his letter to the voting section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, a copy of the document showed.
The addition of voting sites would force the rescheduling of the election, according to Evergreen directors’ discussion.
New hire
After searching for more than a year, the board approved the hiring of a hydrologist for a fulltime staff position.
His duties will include the computer modeling of the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer system’s storage capacities using software created by the Texas Water Development Board and field data from the Evergreen’s dozens of monitoring wells.
The board unanimously voted to pay Clifford Lowe Jr., $50,000 a year plus staff benefits.
He currently lives and works in San Antonio. Lowe and his family would be required to move into the district within a year, Mahoney said.
Lowe holds a 1998 master’s degree in environmental sciences from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He has a considerable amount of experience in ground-water modeling, including projects at out-of-state Air Force bases, Mahoney said.
The board had budgeted $40,000 a year for the position, but Mahoney convinced the directors that amount isn’t competitive nowadays — by at least $5,000.
Water planning in Texas, he said, “is going to go on forever” and consultation firms are snatching up hydrologists with graduate degrees.
The hydrologist will begin working at the Evergreen district’s headquarters, in Pleasanton, in mid-January, according to discussion.
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