Hays County's water situation

  One More Generation

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The “rude bridge” around here is in Lee County. Rather than a store of weapons, the “embattled farmers” there, and in neighboring Bastrop County, are defending the long-term sustainability of their water supply, and thus their own economic future. The British Redcoats in this analogy are the “water hustlers” and their allies who are attempting to gain the ability to pump the aquifer storing that water supply at unsustainable rates, which will result in large drawdown, and eventual depletion, of that aquifer as a usable water supply. In short, Bastrop and Lee counties are seen as water “colonies”.
One ally in particular, Hays County, has entered into an agreement with one of those water hustlers to create an unsustainable draw on that aquifer. Purportedly this is to meet the future water needs in Hays County, on the presumption its recent growth trend will continue for the next few decades. This is simply a taking from the future of the “colonies” to secure their own. That’s why King George was taxing the American colonies, right? You might say, therefore, that a shot has been fired in the Great Texas Water War. How far and wide that shot is heard remains to be seen.
According to the groundwater model which is accepted by the Texas Water Development Board as an accurate picture of the impact on this aquifer, the drawdown which the currently demanded pumpage would create indicates that the Simsboro Aquifer in Lee County would be significantly dewatered, headed toward depletion, in one more generation. And that is just considering the water to be exported, leaving little to support economic development in “the colonies”. Indeed, it is projected that, if the current drought in this region endures, Bastrop and Lee counties will have a water supply deficit for their own municipal needs even without that water being exported.  Read More......