Water – It’s What’s for Life
To the Editor:
I wish I could evoke Robert Mitchum’s rich baritone voiceover to accompany the reading of my title as I paraphrase the ‘beef — it’s what’s for dinner’ lead in. A recent meeting of the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District (FCGCD) was my initial foray into learning more about this topic. (For a superb summation of that meeting please refer to Andy Behlen’s Fayette County Record article dated Tuesday, June 15, 2021 which can be located in the FCR Archives). A public hearing on the proposed water plan is to be held at 9:30 a.m. July 12 at the Fayette County Ag Building on Svoboda Lane in La Grange. Also, the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District - LCRA permit hearing will meet at 7 p.m. on July 14 at the Bastrop Convention Center. I have taken upon myself to write this editorial in an attempt to spread the word and bolster attendance at those two meetings.
I think we have all known for some time that our freshwater resources are limited. Those of us living in La Grange and the surrounding rural areas are drawing our water from groundwater we capture from digging wells. Austin draws off the surface water of the Colorado River. Personally I was compelled to learn more regarding who was drawing how much water and from where. Additionally, I wanted to learn who the overseers/decision makers were in this endeavor and were they being good stewards. Though I am early on in my education I think there are many similarities between water and energy in the state of Texas. Texas has the Public Utilities Commission appointed by the governor and other state leaders for energy and for water the Texas Water Development Board whose members are appointed by the governor. Most counties appoint their groundwater conservation district (GCD) members. Apparently in Fayette County the members are elected.
In both realms, energy and water, capacity, both present and future, must be considered. Regarding water, the drawdown of the various underground aquifers permitted by future contracts was recently being addressed, along with whether to permit an even greater drawdown (depletion) of the reservoirs than what was currently in place. The debate seemed to hinge on the slope of the descent, steeper or more gradual, to reach a point where there is little or no water from which to draw in 2070 per the models looking at consumption. This approach to planning for the future regarding the drawdown of water from our aquifers can be summed up by a comment made by the editorial columnist George Will who recently wrote (on another topic and I’m paraphrasing): “After all, what has posterity ever done for us?”
Certainly we do have events that replenish our water sources. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 brought us too much water in too condensed a period of time for example. And whereas surface reservoirs were replenished, much of the water had moved on to the coast before the trickle down could take effect to replenish our underground aquifers.
San Antonio Water System has a contract with Vista Ridge LLC to purchase up to 50,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater from Carrizo/Simsboro Aquifer and began pumping in 2020. That volume of water is 100 times what was the estimated use for that aquifer in the Post Oak Savannah GCD according to the Texas Water Development Board’s Projected Exempt Groundwater Use Estimates for May 2020.
There are five groundwater conversation districts that comprise the Groundwater Management Area 12. For the proposed future conditions of our groundwater for the next five years, three of the five districts must agree with one another. The Fayette County GCD only encompasses approximately one half of Fayette County. Every other GCD has two (and one GCD has three) counties within their districts. So think of FCGCD being similar to any of our least populous states in the US Senate in regards to our representation.
Personally I have addressed some of my concerns regarding water by installing a rainwater harvesting system and sending the collected rainwater through a whole house filtration system to make it potable (safely drinkable) to run through all of our taps: faucet, showerheads, commode, etc. We are still tied into city water. My wife would not allow me to purchase the barrel capacity needed to make it through most of our droughts. Something about esthetics. We manage to run off of rainwater 80% of the time.
My hope in submitting this letter is to drum up interest in one more matters to vie for your attention and time. Hopefully some of you will be able to carve out some time from your busy schedules to attend the above meetings. After all — it’s what’s for life.
Kent Babcock
La Grange