By Marty Kufus

SAN ANTONIO — Almost six months ago regional water planners happily finished the first round of work they began in 1998, and sent a three-volume plan to the state water board in Austin.
Three major water entities meanwhile signed contracts to cooperatively develop a large part of one of the most ambitious "op-tions" in the regional plan.
The transport, via a 130-mile pipeline, of water from the lower Guadalupe River — just south of its confluence with the San Antonio River, near the coast — would bring up to 22.8 billion gallons a year by 2010 or earlier, according to planning estimates.
Those approximately 70,000 acre-feet of water annually would fill about 13 percent of the year-2050 shortfall (505,000 acre-feet or more) forecast for a region dominated by San Antonio.
The lower Guadalupe option is a cornerstone of the region’s 50-year plan. In full form, the option is called "SCTN-16" in the plan.
But a technical ruling over "interbasin transfer" by the Texas Water Development Board’s staff might, in effect, cut some 67,000 acre-feet a year from the production goal.
If the water board itself is unmoved by regional planners’ arguments later this month, the Guadalupe option might be discarded, according to discussion June 5.
"We’ll take it out [of the plan]; we cannot use it," Evelyn Bonavita, chairman of the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group, said.

Since January, the planning group has been in an interim phase, which likely will last through November.
The "Region L" group, which represents 20 1/2 counties (including Wilson and Bexar) is operating now on a small budget from the water board during this interim.
Since January, the water board’s staff has been scrutinizing 16 regional plans for assembly into a state plan. It is due in Austin in January 2002.
Water options, or potential projects, recommended in the regional and state plans would receive priority for permits and funding, officials have said.
Last February, the water board’s staff notified Region L planners and their engineering consultants with unwelcome news.
Citing its 1998 mapping of river basins, the water board’s staff said the pipeline project would be an "interbasin transfer" of water from the Guadalupe River’s basin.
The Region L plan, however, had called it an in-basin transfer from the San Antonio River’s basin.
The plan had noted "some modification of this [water-board] rule may be necessary to retain seniority" of water rights for a di-version below the rivers’ confluence.

Under state water law, an interbasin transfer has the most junior status in users’ claims to surface water.
In the Guadalupe project, an interbasin-transfer designation — if it stuck — would subject about 67,000 acre-feet of river water a year to "junior rights" status, making it unreliable in a severe drought, an official said later.
The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission would issue permits for such a water project.
If it abides by this interbasin designation, the Guadalupe option "looks DOA [‘dead on arrival’] to me," one regional planner remarked last week.
Another planner, General Manager Bill West of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA) said grimly, "The TNRCC has punted back to the water board."
The GBRA recently signed contracts with the San Antonio Water System and the San Antonio River Authority (SARA) for development of the pipeline project (June 6 Wilson County News). The GBRA’s role would include the provision of senior rights to river water.
Representatives of the water board’s staff seemed adamant last week: It would be an interbasin transfer.
"We have a legal construct that may differ from some of the hydrological constructs" used in regional planning, Craig Pedersen, executive administrator to the Texas Water Develop-ment Board, said.
"We know how strongly you all feel about this issue," he told the Region L planners. "I feel our hands are tied …"
Pedersen and the water board’s general counsel, Suzanne Schwartz, attended at the invitation of Jorge Arroyo.
He is the assistant director of water resources planning at the water board. Arroyo is a nonvoting member of the Region L group.
Regional planner Greg Rothe, SARA’s general manager, fumed.
"I cannot give up my hope," he said, that "reasonable people" will decide against an interbasin designation.
If not, Rothe predicted, the planners would have to look for another source of water — perhaps even outside Region L.
Pederson urged the planners to take their case to the full water board, and even to the TNRCC.
The water board’s staff, he said, would not consider it an affront. Pederson added that "we’d be happy to work with you all" if this "unique hydrological situation" someday became a legislative issue.
A delegation from Region L is scheduled to meet with the Texas Water Development Board June 20 in Austin.

Planners last week received their consultants’ preliminary technical evaluation of an "Ecleto Reservoir."
The evaluation, by HDR Engineering Inc., already had made the rounds in Wilson County (May 30 Wilson County News).
The proposal, largely to benefit San Antonio, envisions an approximately 4,400-acre reservoir south of Pandora in eastern Wilson County.
It would store water from the Ecleto Creek plus water piped from the San Antonio River, Cibolo Creek, and possibly from the lower Guadalupe and lower Colorado rivers.
Regional planners were nowhere near any consideration of possibly adding the Ecleto as an "option" to their plan.
They took no action, and scheduled none.
"Is this an exciting prospect … or a ‘don’t bother’?" Rothe asked.
"One key thing this region needs is storage … proximate to Bexar County," engineer Sam Vaugh replied. "So, in that sense, I’m a little excited."
Pandora-area landowners Thomas Loessin and David Wehmeyer repeated their opposition to the idea.
"We’d like the same consideration you all gave the Cibolo [Reservoir opposition] people," Wehmeyer said during public comment.
"Not a single landowner is in favor of it [Ecleto] … and we’re not in favor of the Cibolo," he said.