By Marty Kufus

The idea: a relatively small reservoir, with earthen dam, covering 3,000 to 4,000 acres of land to a maximum depth of about 50 feet. Its location would be in the eastern tip of Wilson County, south of Pandora, in the Ecleto Creek’s watershed.

The reservoir roughly would be bounded by C.R. 458 on the east and U.S. 87 on the north, according to a conceptual map.
The idea has been studied for several months — no formal actions taken — by regional water planner and Wilson County resident Darrell Brownlow, county Judge Marvin Quinney, and the San Antonio River Authority. Potentially affected landowners and the Wilson County Water Action Project have been apprised of the idea, as well.

The San Antonio River Authority (SARA) hired its consultants, HDR Engineering Inc., to prepare a "preliminary technical evaluation" of the site of an Ecleto Creek Reservoir. That 13-page document was released Feb. 12. "HDR should complete their analysis in mid-April and will issue a final report with more detail than was contained in the Feb. 12" preliminary report, a SARA spokesman said.

"SARA funded this analysis to determine whether this potential site offers any benefits to the regional [water] plan and to the water users in this region," he said. "The purpose of this analysis was to take a very cursory look at the potential project to see if it is worth bringing to the regional planning process for more serious consideration."

Quinney said last week that no homes would be affected by an Ecleto Creek Reservoir, if it ever happened. And local landowners’ willingness to sell their land in the impact area would be crucial.

"Until valid technical studies are done and Wilson County’s benefits are secured, I don’t believe anybody should be supportive of such a project," Brownlow told the Wilson County News last week. If the affected landowners and the county could benefit financially, Brownlow and Quinney agreed, an Ecleto reservoir could figure significantly in San Antonio’s ongoing search for storage of additional water.

A designation for public recreation on a reservoir, the right of landowners to develop property down to water’s edge, and the opportunity for local municipalities to buy water would be points for negotiation, Brownlow suggested. He and the county judge said this idea has little similarity to the controversial proposal for a 16,000-acre "Cibolo Reservoir" in central Wilson County.

Owing greatly to local opposition, regional water planners last year did not include the Cibolo — or any other large reservoir "option" — in their final plan. With the Ecleto, negotiations for land acquisition — backed by San Antonio’s deep pockets — could prove profitable for land-owners and bring a windfall for the county from an export fee on the water, Quinney and Brownlow said last week.

HDR’s Feb. 12 preliminary report envisioned, in southern Wilson County, two pump stations and a pipeline feeding water from the San Antonio River and Cibolo Creek into an Ecleto reservoir. Those waters, mixed with water from the Ecleto Creek’s own watershed, could provide a "firm yield" supply of up to 40,600 acre-feet annually beginning in the year 2020, HDR calculated. An acre-foot is about 325,860 gallons.

The South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group submitted the first installment of its plan to Austin on Jan. 5.
The plan forecast the construction of major pipeline projects tapping the lower Colorado River and lower Guadalupe River (above the saltwater barrier) by the year 2030. Later in January, the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) signed formal agreements with SARA, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, and the Lower Colorado River Authority to proceed with development of the two costly projects.

The projects could bring the construction of a large water pipeline that runs through eastern Wilson County on its northwesterly route to San Antonio. SAWS’ representatives to the regional planning group regularly said last year the municipal system will need nearby storage for water that is brought in from a distance. The Cibolo Reservoir option was suggested as a "terminal storage facility."