Contact:
For Immediate Release
Christy Muse, Executive Director
Hill Country Alliance
CASE CLOSED: Disappointment for Hill Country Aquifer Protection
(April 23, 2014) -
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently halted a
process that could have created groundwater conservation districts
(GCDs) in some of the fasted growing areas of the
Hill Country. TCEQ Executive Director Richard Hyde successfully
petitioned the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) with a
motion to dismiss the case that had been underway since 2010 to create
GCDs in Western Travis and Western Comal counties. The
request was granted January 27, 2014, and the case is now closed.
It was not clear why the
leadership of TCEQ brought forth a motion to dismiss the ongoing case
and process for putting GCDs in place. Many of those involved in the
proceedings expressed surprise by the abrupt decision.
“The completion of this process appears to be caught in an endless
political loop,” said longtime observer and former Travis County
Commissioner Karen Huber.
Back in 1990 the Hill
Country area was studied by the Texas Water Commission. A determination
was made that the area was already experiencing and likely to experience
more “critical groundwater problems” in the
next 20 years. The report concluded that groundwater demand would
exceed availability and that groundwater conservation districts should
be created throughout the “Hill Country Priority Groundwater Management
Area” to locally manage the resource.
In the summer of 2010,
TCEQ recommended the creation of a multi-county groundwater conservation district
covering western portions of Hays, Comal and Travis Counties to provide
effective management of the Trinity Aquifer. The area described is
outlined in red on the attached
map below. At that time the commissioner’s courts for all three
counties passed resolutions of support for the regional district. In
2011, the board of the Hays Trinity GCD in western Hays County responded
with a resolution firmly opposing the idea.
Thus, TCEQ revised this
recommendation to suggest the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer District
annex Western Travis and the Trinity Glen Rose District annex Western
Comal. Then, in January of 2014, TCEQ recommended
dismissal of the process altogether.
As background, it is
important to note that the Trinity Aquifer is the major source of well
water west of I-35 covering all or portions of
Bandera, Blanco, Gillespie, Kendall, Kerr, Comal, Hays, Travis, and Bexar
Counties. Nine GCDs have been established by willing landowners,
voting citizens and local governments in most of these counties. Western
Comal and Southwestern Travis Counties are seeing explosive population
growth, widespread development, and increasing
demand on groundwater resources; yet they are the only remaining areas
in the Hill Country not managing their water resources through a GCD.
Ron
Fieseler, General Manager of the Blanco-Pedernales GCD has been looking
forward to seeing southwestern Travis County and western Comal County
become part of the GCD community for years. “These
counties are technically part of the Hill Country Groundwater
Management Area 9, where GCDs work across boundaries to coordinate and
plan jointly. But because GCDs don’t exist in Travis and Comal counties,
they are not at the table. It is disappointing that
these areas still do not have groundwater governance, despite many
years of effort to overcome either real or imagined problems,” stated
Fieseler.
Groundwater
is strongly protected as a private-property right under the Texas water
code’s Rule of Capture, or the “law of the biggest pump.” Regulation
through GCDs with locally elected boards
is currently the only option in Texas for landowners to protect their
water from a neighbor’s bigger pump. GCDs issue permits for large volume
producing wells, also known as non-exempt wells. GCDs also implement
drought management plans, monitor the aquifer
levels, study the science of their aquifer, and deliver public
education about groundwater and water conservation. Individual household
wells are generally exempt.
Unfortunately
most GCDs have been formed along county lines and county lines are
political boundaries rather than natural boundaries. Underground water
flows freely from county to county and it
is impossible to effectively manage groundwater without addressing this
issue. Managing water resources within natural systems such as aquifers
and watersheds is a step in the right direction for the Hill Country.
The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) recommends
a regional, three county GCD as the most science based, and
economically stable option.
The lack of GCD governance in a fast growing region could have detrimental impacts to neighboring regions whose groundwater
is managed by a GCD. Without GCD management, the future of
plentiful groundwater and a healthy aquifer in southwest Travis and
western Comal counties is in jeopardy. But for now, it appears that TCEQ
has abdicated the issue to the 2015 legislature. Stay
tuned.
The
Hill Country Alliance is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to
raise public awareness and build community support around the need to
preserve the natural resources
and heritage of the Central Texas Hill Country.
outh, parents, friends, and volunteers,
