Meeting Spotlights Developers Interest in Local Aquifers

Regional groundwater officials are about to update a long-term groundwater plan. Representatives from two nonprofit groups working to protect groundwater resources spoke at a meeting of the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District (FCGCD) on Monday, June 7 to oppose the plans.

Steve Box, president of the group Environmental Stewardship, asked the District’s board of directors to vote against an update to a water plan being considered by the regional Groundwater Management Area 12 (GMA-12), which covers the western third of Fayette County.

“Are we going to manage in a manner where we’re mining the aquifers to protect the private interest of water marketers and developers?” Box asked the board members. “Or are we going to move forward and set a standard that says we want the desired future condition of these aquifers managed in a sustainable way that will go well into the future?”

At issue are the proposed drawdown in the water level of local aquifers through the year 2069. The proposed update would increase the drawdown amounts in some aquifers, which critics say would allow large water developers to increase pumping at the expense of rural landowners who depend on small private water wells.

Box said the plan favors special interests whom he said want to export groundwater from rural areas to cities such as San Antonio that are running out of water. The Vista Ridge water well field in Burleson County near the Lee County line is one such project that was completed last year. A series of wells drilled into the Simsboro Aquifer (which is part of the Carrizo Wilcox aquifer system) can pump about 50,000 acre-feet of water per year. A 142-mile pipeline transports all that water to the City of San Antonio. Landowners near the well field have already reported water wells drying up.

Several concerned landowners were at Monday’s meeting representing the Simsboro Aquifer Water Defense Fund (SAWDF), a group currently battling the Vista Ridge project.

SAWDF Director Michele Gangnes told the story of one landowner near the Vista Ridge project with a well that was drilled in the 1970s to 850 feet deep. She said the landowner had to lower their pump 20 feet after the drought of 2011. Now, she said the water level has dropped 70 feet.

“We’re hearing from landowners in northeast Lee County whose wells have gone dry over night,” she said. “They’ve not had a problem, maybe they had a pump that needed to be replace over time, but they were never out of water. But all of a sudden, starting in mid-2020, just after Vista Ridge started full pumping, I’m aware of 27 to 28 wells in Lee County that have had to be remediated.”

The problem has gotten so bad in Burleson County, Gangnes said, that the Post Oak Savannah Groundwater Conservation District started offering $3,500 payments to affected well owners for remediation efforts, such as lowering pumps.

The Vista Ridge project, located some 40 miles from the Fayette County line, won’t likely affect water wells here. After the meeting, FCGCD Manager David Van Dresar told the Record that water developers will not likely target Fayette County because the Carrizo Wilcox system lies much deeper here, making it harder to access. He said the water quality in the Carrizo Wilcox system is not as good here, either.

However, Box raised another concern that could impact Fayette County.

He presented models that he said show the interaction between groundwater and surface water in the Colorado River. Box said that the Colorado currently receives groundwater from aquifer outcrops along its course. He said increased pumping by water developers could reverse the situation. Instead of gaining water from the aquifers, Box said the Colorado could begin losing water to the aquifers.

The problem would become most apparent during drought years. Several cities along the river, rice farmers and some other private landowners hold long-standing rights to water in the river. The Lower Colorado River Authority manages surface water in the Colorado River and must ensure those water right holders receive their share. Moreover, LCRA must maintain enough water in the river for environmental flows to ensure the biological health of the river, bay system and estuaries.

“In a drought year, all of the water below Bastrop is fully appropriated to surface water rights holders,” Box said. “If we have a drought and every water right holder were to take their amount, then there would be no water left in the river. So any water that doesn’t get to the river as a result of groundwater pumping has a negative impact on these surface right holders.”

In other words, someone won’t get their share. He said keeping the current plan “does not take us past that red line.”

After the presentation, both groups left the meeting. Board members discussed the comments but doubted whether large pumping projects in other parts of the region would affect Fayette County.

“Our entire county doesnt equal what some of those projects are pumping, such as Vista Ridge,” Van Dresar said.

Concerning the potential effects on the Colorado River, Van Dresar said that the interaction between groundwater and surface water is not fully understood.

“There needs to be more science,” he said.

During the meeting, FCGCD legal counsel Monique Norman voiced a different perspective: “When the state’s population is going to double by 2050, you can’t protect a 200 foot well from the 1970s.”

FCGCD will hold a public hearing on the proposed water plan updates at a meeting on July 12 starting at 9:30 a.m. The meeting takes place at the Fayette County Ag Building on Svoboda Lane in La Grange.