By Marty Kufus
Wilson County News
September 26, 2001

FLORESVILLE — The San Antonio-based Alamo Area Council of Governments catered the lunch Friday as representatives of the metropolitan water system held an unusual get-acquainted session with officials from Wilson, Karnes, and Frio counties.
The San Antonio Water System’s top official pledged a “mitigation policy” to ensure that future water projects do not harm water interests in surrounding areas.
SAWS President Eugene Habiger also said he hoped to “win the hearts and minds” of residents in extreme southern Bexar County and convince them not to vote for annexation by the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District.
Earlier in the week, as word of the meeting with SAWS got around, local representatives of the San Antonio River Authority and Evergreen phoned AACOG to say they, too, would attend.
In all, 17 people broke bread over a long table in the district courtroom upstairs in the Wilson County Courthouse.
Among them were county judges Marvin Quinney of Wilson, Alfred Pawelek of Karnes, and Carlos Garcia of Frio. Two AACOG officials, Chairman Lyle Larson, a Bexar County commissioner, and Executive Director Al Notzon III, broke the ice.
Habiger said a “regional” water problem exists because “we live on the edge of a desert.”
In the coming years, San Antonio must reduce its reliance on the Edwards Aquifer and develop water sources elsewhere. As it does this, he said, SAWS will have “a mitigation policy in place so we do not take water away from people” in surrounding areas.
Engineer Mike Brinkmann gave a well-practiced slide presentation on SAWS’ aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) project.
Its goal is the eventual storage of Edwards water during wet seasons in a small portion of the Carrizo Aquifer in southern Bexar County.
The earliest test-injection of a small amount of Edwards water could occur in August 2003, Brinkmann said.
His presentation held little new information about San Antonio’s growing water needs or the ASR project in particular.
The subject likely was a sore point for two Evergreen board members at the luncheon, Doug Brownlow and Mark Mitchell of Wilson County.
Earlier this year, Evergreen officials were angered when they learned SAWS had a new plan for the ASR site: pump the Carrizo, at up to 30,000 acre-feet a year, as an alternative source from 2003 to 2007.
An acre-foot equals about 325,860 gallons, or enough for eight people for a year.
“One thing we do acknowledge: It will have effects on water levels” in wells within a few miles of the ASR site, Brinkmann said Friday. But SAWS will be a “good neighbor” and mitigate those effects.
Computer modeling, he said, indicated a yearly withdrawal of up to 30,000 acre-feet from that portion of the Carrizo in southern Bexar County is “sustainable.”
Habiger said later that SAWS intended to spend at least $125 million on the southern Bexar project.
It won’t spend that money, he said, “unless we’re very, very sure we’re not going to screw up the aquifer.”

The purpose of Friday’s meeting seemed to have been fence-mending.
The apparent message: SAWS, the largest water purveyor in South Texas, wants to be a good neighbor with rural counties such as the four served by the Pleasanton-based Evergreen district.
“SAWS has got to rid itself of its image of being an 800-pound gorilla that doesn’t care about anyone except those in the city limits of San Antonio,” Habiger remarked.
The $210,000-a-year president and chief executive officer is no stranger to situations marked by suspicion and mistrust.
In 1998, Habiger retired from the Air Force as a four-star general and a former commander of U.S. strategic nuclear forces. Television viewers might recall seeing Gen. Habiger several years ago exchanging goodwill toasts with his Russian nuclear counterpart in a segment of “60 Minutes.”
SAWS hired Habiger in February. Last week, SAWS trustees extended his contract to four and a half years, a press release said.

Brownlow said he had not “heard anything yet that gives me a warm feeling” about the possibility of chemical reactions of minerals in Edwards water and Carrizo water.
SAWS’ lab tests so far showed no problems, Brinkmann replied, and up to six wells would be used in ASR testing in southern Bexar County.
Karnes County rancher Jeff Lynch, who expressed an abiding interest in rural ground-water resources, said he feared the injection of Edwards water would exert damaging pressure against the sand and gravel formations of the Carrizo Aquifer.
If such effects were detected, he asked Habiger, would the ASR project halt?
Yes, Habiger replied.
He glanced at Brinkmann, then said that “within six months, we’ll have a comprehensive test-well program … coordinated with you folks.”
SAWS’ president was asked about a February vote scheduled for extreme southern Bexar County.
A group of residents there, expressing fear that SAWS’ projects would harm their water wells, petitioned the Evergreen to annex the area. If that happened, the district’s rules could severely limit SAWS’ plans (Aug. 22 Wilson County News).
“We’re developing a number of strategies” for the situation, Habiger said. He said he hoped to “win the hearts and minds” of the voters there and convince them that “to not go that route would be in their best interests.”
He said SAWS wants to “get them back in the fold” and overcome their mistrust.