The Hill Country Needs Ground Water Conservation Districts

Prior to 1997, there were 52 Groundwater Districts in the State. In the 2001 session of the Stare Legislature, 22 were added and 13 previously created were ratified, making a total of 87 GCDs in Texas.  These 13 temporary districts did not have all the authority granted to permanent Groundwater Districts. The 2001 Legislature just approved a bill making these Districts full authority Districts as of September 1, 2001.  Comal, Kendall, and Kerr Counties are among those counties with new ground water districts. The voters who live in some of these districts will decide whether to have a District in the November, 2001 election. This is the earliest date any of the 13 districts may hold an election.

The Southeast Trinity Groundwater Conservation District failed in the Nov 6, 2001 election and is no longer in operation.

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The Legal Mission of a GCD is To  Conserve, Preserve, Protect and Recharge your ground water -

Conserve, Preserve and Protect are interrelated words but these are the words used in the law.  Protect is used in Webster's to describe the word preserve.  Both preserve and conserve list "save" as a synonym.  Here is my choice of applicable use of these words.

Conserve - to avoid wasteful and destructive use of

Preserve - to keep safe from injury, harm or destruction: Protect

Protect - to cover or shield from injury or destruction.

Recharge - to restore anew.   In hydrology the recharge of ground water in this usage is a human effort to force or redirect water into the ground for storage and reuse. Of course there is natural recharge. 

Mining - If there is neither natural or human induced recharge or the recharge is less than the amount taken, then taking of water is considered mining. When something is mined there is a limited quantity to be taken and after some time there is nothing left to mine. 

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Ground Water Conservation Districts are:

The Answer to Uncontrolled Development - We hear complaints of uncontrolled development in the Hill Country and this is very true.  The counties have very little control over developers and other industry and none over the water they consume.  By using science, a Ground Water District can control development by limiting the amount of water that can be taken by commercial wells (the districts have no jurisdiction over production of private wells)  It is known that rain water recharge to the Trinity Aquifer will not sustain the present pumping rates in many parts of the aquifer.  With projected population growth many areas of the aquifer will be over taxed.  If a 1950's type drought occurred the water stored in the aquifer will be insufficient and many many wells will go dry if the land development is not controlled.   If this happens there will be an insufficient number of trucks to haul the needed water from other areas as is presently being done for the Bulverde Hills neighborhood in Bulverde, TX.

The Answer to Water Contamination Prevention - Counties in Texas have no control over sewage plants and the quality of effluent dumped into your streams and back to the ground water.  The TNRCC has a minimum standard for the entire state and lacks enforcement manpower for those standards.   Several cities like Kerrville, San Marcos and El Paso have found the TNRCC standards inadequate and have set higher standards for their plants.  Your county cannot do that.  Your Groundwater District can.  Southeast Trinity Ground Water Conservation District (Comal County) has broken new ground for water districts by accepting Protection rules beyond water well construction.  These rules are posted on the STGCD website for public comment this month (July) and a public hearing will be held on the rules on August 22, 2001.  The rules are also posted on this website for your convenience.   If these rules are adopted, sewage treatment plants and hydrocarbon storage tanks will be under local control within the water district boundaries.  In addition, the natural ground water recharge features on any land developed in the district will be protected.

The Answer to Water Conservation and Drought Relief - By establishing a maximum pumping limit based on studies of recharge by the Texas Water Development Board, a water district can limit pumping of commercial wells to the recharge rate in that area.  At present, the Cow Creek GCD (Kendall County) and the Southeast Trinity GCD (Comal County) are considering 0.15 acre ft per acre as the acceptable recharge rate for the general area.  This means that if a developer decided to put in a water supply instead of individual wells, he would have to show 3.3 acres of clear land for each family of 4 within the development assuming that a family of 4 uses 0.5 acre ft per year.   By charging the developer for the water used conservation is encouraged.

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What the STGCD Would Have Cost If We Had Voted Yes - No one likes taxes or taxing districts and there has been a lot of negative commentary lately about the new Southeast Trinity Groundwater Conservation District or STGCD in Comal County.  Considering the good this organization can do for us, we believe the anti-tax group is getting worked up over some pretty small numbers.  If you are on a meter and use 10,000 gallons a month, the STGCD will add $1.70 to your water bill.  The taxing authority of the district will add $20 a year to the tax bill for a $100,000 house.  This is a small price to pay for preserving and protecting the quality of a valuable resource. 

 Of course if you have your own personal well you will pay only the taxes and no fees on water. No domestic well with a capacity under 25,000 gallons per day (about a 17 gpm pump) will be permitted or regulated in any way by the STGCD.  Although it is within the power of a GCD to do so, the STGCD has chosen not to permit domestic wells or any well that has a capacity to produce less than 25,000 gallons per day.

 What the STGCD Will Cost Since We Vote No - If you think our water is not subject to abuse you should talk to the neighbors of River Crossing Golf course who’s wells went dry when the golf course started pumping.  The STGCD was new, did not have rules in place and had no criteria to deny a permit for the wells.  Under new STGCD rules discussed below.  River Crossing may have qualified for the production of the 500,000 gallons per day needed to water an 18-hole course in summer, or they may not.  However, only a GCD can require all new commercial wells to meet a test – are they taking more water out of the ground than mother nature can put back.  If the vote is no, the public loses this control and the rule of capture prevails - See the next paragraph. The public also loses the right to protect the ground water from pollution with local control instead of inadequate TNRCC standards.

How the Rule of Capture Works - An aquifer with water wells acts a lot like a bathtub with a bunch of straws in it.  If everyone is sucking on a straw with the same force then everyone gets the same amount of water.  The rule of capture works in this case so long as the total amount of water taken does not exceed the amount flowing in. The tub has to be refilled once in a while. 

Now! You may think the water under your land is yours.  But if you quit sucking on your straw your water is going to flow to your neighbors wells.  The water in that bathtub will try to stay level - dip a cupful out of a bucket and tell me you see the hole.  Just try saving water under your land for a dry spell if you are surrounded by big water users.   If you don't suck on your straw, the water under your land can disappear anyway, even if you never take a gallon out of the ground.   It sure won’t be there when you need it if the people around you take more water than nature can put back.  The rule of capture does not work.  An aquifer can be depleted even when it rains a lot.  That tub has to be refilled or it gets sucked dry.  Only a GCD can prevent this from happening.

 Powers of the STGCD - There has been a lot of rhetoric about the powers of GCDs.  There are 87 GCDs in Texas, many have been in existence for years, and we have not heard of one that has abused its powers.  If you have problems with the powers granted to GCDs please write your state representatives.  It is the legislature that put these powers in place.  We will just have to be sure that people elected to the board will be focused on the mission of the STGCD and will not abuse those powers.  A GCD does not have to use all the powers granted to it by the state.  Most do not.

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The Rules of the STGCD - Rules are necessary for a groundwater district to carry out the legislated mission to Conserve, Preserve, Protect and Recharge the ground water of the district.  The Rules of the Southeast Trinity Groundwater Conservation District may be viewed by the public on the Internet at http://geocities.com/southeasttrinity/.  The temporary directors appointed by Comal County commissioners have had the responsibility of writing these rules and hiring staff to perform the duties required by the rules.

The Rules Would Have Limited Pumping of Large Wells to the Amount of Water Put Back by Nature - Based on science of past studies of the Trinity Aquifer by the Texas Water Control board the STGCD has been trying to develop rules that will limit pumping to the amount of water that is replaced by rainfall.  Doesn’t this make sense?  GCDs are the only political body authorized by the State Legislature to regulate water use in this manner.  

Our tax dollars and user fees will pay for future research to improve on the numbers used for water recharge and pumping limits for specific areas of the district.  This research is necessary because some parts of the Trinity Aquifer produce much more water than other parts.

The STGCD would have studied areas where it is found that water is being depleted at a rapid rate.  A section of the aquifer may simply not recharge the amount of water taken out.  Production may have to be reduced, recharge dams built to boost the supply, or an alternate water supply found for that area.

The STGCD Would Have Signal Us When Are We in Danger of Running Out of Water - The STGCD would have established a criteria for determining that a water shortage is eminent and declare that conservation measures are needed.  The water level in one well is used in the Edwards Aquifer for this purpose and the San Antonio weather forecasters report the level of this well daily. The Trinity is much more complex and will require a lot of study.  We predict the STGCD will have to establish a number of monitoring wells and declare conservation measures are needed as required in various zones of the district.

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The STGCD Rules Would have Controlled Sewage Plants in Comal County - The STGCD passed rules to protect the aquifer from sewage plants, hydrocarbon storage tanks and commercial construction.  Again, the county has no control over these facilities. Incorporated areas may build sewage plants that have stricter standards than the TNRCC.  The cities of Kerrville, San Marcos and El Paso have done exactly that to protect surface and ground water.  Those of us in rural areas are at the mercy of the TNRCC and the TNRCC has a terrible record of regulating sewage plants.  .  

Sewage plants are new to rural areas where OSSF (septic tanks, etc) are traditionally used.  County governments permit and regulate OSSF installations.  Now developers are building small minimum standard sewage plants that serve only one development.  These plants dump chemicals into the lakes and rivers and have the potential to leak raw sewage into the aquifer via the sinkholes and faults in the limestone.  Only the STGCD can protect the quality of your ground water by requiring a higher standard.

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