by John Hatch
(Publisher’s Note: Last week’s guest column by Tim Doty was anti-EP. This week the discussion continues with pro-EP remarks.)
Imagine the Texas Legislature is meeting. Two bills are up for consideration. One bill creates a Groundwater Conservation District to oversee areas that up until now are only regulated by state law – known as white zones. What began more than three years ago and taking a huge financial gamble, a group spends millions of dollars to legally drill wells as allowed under current state law into the Trinity aquifer with plans to pump millions of gallons of water to take care of thousands of citizens and businesses that will need water. Those citizens already get water from the Edwards Aquifer and the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority and now will also get water from the Trinity. The water will come from the county and will stay to serve people in that county.
There has been a great deal of controversy with groups on both sides – one claiming there is more than enough water to provide for their citizens while opponents claim the aquifer cannot possibly sustain that much water. Both have scientists armed with studies and charts ‘proving their point’.
Sound familiar? It should, but it’s not Hays County. It’s to our south, Comal County.
New Braunfels – Grandfathered
(SB 963 by Campbell)
In 2011 New Braunfels Utilities drilled a test well to determine if the project was feasible. Roger Biggers, NBU executive director, was quoted in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, “We would like to have some (water) production out of there in the next 12 to 15 months.” That was in March 2013. Thanks to opposition delays, the project is finally set to come on-line by June 2015 – more than a year after the project was originally slated to be finished.
The City of New Braunfels did not own the land when the wells were drilled, but would later buy the land from the school district. The well field cost over $12 million and is slated to pump up to 4 million gallons a day from the Trinity.
Buda-Goforth – Not Grandfathered
(SB 1440 by Campbell)
The New Braunfels Project story reads identical to the Buda-Goforth Groundwater Project. Affected aquifer: Trinity. White Zones: Covered. Cost of Project: $12 million New Braunfels, $15 million Buda-Goforth. Projects began: 2011.
But there is one important difference.
Sen. Donna Campbell is carrying both bills in the Legislature. Senate Bill 963 grandfathers the New Braunfels project and allows them to move forward, requiring the district to issue a permit.
But in Senate Bill 1440, there is no such language for the Buda-Goforth bill. While Buda, Goforth and Electro Purification all agree in principal to the area being taken over by the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, we feel the Buda-Goforth project deserves the same consideration as the City of New Braunfels project.
Mitigation requirements will be mandated in both Buda’s and Goforth’s contracts, requiring Electro Purification to pay for efforts needed to address negative effects of surrounding wells. The scope and depth of which wells could be affected will be determined after extensive aquifer tests performed later this summer.
In a 2013 Herald-Zeitung story about the first attempt to create the Comal County Trinity Groundwater District, Campbell stated, “When a businessman does something in good faith and the city or a government reneges or finds a loophole, I think that’s wrong.”
Campbell, we agree and that is why we ask for the Buda-Goforth Project to be allowed to proceed so that Buda and Goforth can have water by 2017 – just as the contracts already in place allow.
John Hatch is a 20 year resident of Hays County and lives in the City of Buda. He is the local spokesperson for Electro Purification.
