Complexities and challenges of joint planning and large-scale groundwater production
The latest issue of the Texas Water Journal includes a “Case Study of Groundwater Management Issues at the Forefront of Large-scale Production from a Confined Aquifer: The Vista Ridge Project” by Steven C. Young, Carlos Rubinstein and Russell Johnson. In laying out the greater context, the authors state that the “2022 Texas state water plan predicts that Texas’s population will increase 73% between 2020 and 2070. During this 50-year period, the demand for municipal water will increase 66%, or approximately 3.3 million acre-feet per year (af/yr). The existing supply of water is projected to decline by 18% over the same period, primarily due to statewide aquifer depletion.” The authors assert that “the complexity of moving water to where it is needed will be a key factor in meeting Texas’s unprecedented economic and population growth.”
The Vista Ridge Project is located in Burleson County within a few miles of the Lee County border (about 87 miles east of Austin) where it began producing some 50,000 to 55,000 af/yr from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer back in 2020. This water is transported to San Antonio via a 142-mile pipeline to meet the needs of one of America’s fastest growing cities. “Given that groundwater water supply projects like the Vista Ridge Project are being considered across Texas,” the authors explain, the study is intended to familiarize “groundwater decision makers … with the groundwater issues, science, modeling, and mitigating factors associated with the Vista Ridge Project.”
Texas groundwater is a vested real property right of the surface owner under the Rule of Capture based on over a century of case law. Meanwhile, groundwater conservation districts (GCDs) are locally constituted entities with the authority to balance the many beneficial uses of an area’s groundwater resources. The Texas Water Code states that GCDs have the responsibility “to protect property rights, balance the conservation and development of groundwater to meet the needs of this state, and use the best available science in the conservation and development of groundwater through rules.”
It’s a well-known fact that aquifers do not follow the borders of political subdivisions, such as GCDs. In order to better account for this physical reality, groundwater conservation districts are clustered into groundwater management areas (GMAs), which roughly cover the underlying aquifers under their joint jurisdiction. Every five years, these GMAs undertake a joint planning process that results in the mandatory adoption of desired future conditions (DFCs), which the Texas Water Code defines as a “quantitative description … of the desired condition of the groundwater resources in a management area at one or more specified future times.” These DFCs “must provide a balance between the highest practicable level of groundwater production and the conservation, preservation, protection, recharging, and prevention of waste of groundwater.”
Among the many complex issues identified in the Vista Ridge study, the authors highlight the fact that “a landowner’s property right to preserve, protect, and produce groundwater is for all practical purposes determined by the rule of capture or the groundwater rules of a GCD.” They go on to point out the potential conflicts that can arise due to differences in these rules among GCDs within a GMA based on two of the districts with jurisdiction over the Vista Ridge Project: Post Oak Savannah Groundwater Conservation District and the Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District within GMA 12.
The Post Oak Savannah GCD rules “recognize a correlative right of 2 af/yr per acre” assigned to a production permit as the maximum allowable annual production. Meanwhile, the Lost Pines GCD rules require the applicant “to prove the amount needed for the intended use.”
“The comparison of the two sets of GCD rules illustrates the significant differences in how [these two GCDs] were managing and regulating groundwater resources … The differences occurred despite the two GCDs overlying the same aquifers and the [Texas Water Code] requirements to use best available science in rulemaking and to protect property rights.”
Defining “best available science” also presents challenges because of “the inconsistency in how GCDs in a GMA collect and evaluate water level data” and how these data are then communicated to landowners and used in defining DFCs. In looking at the Vista Ridge example, the authors argue that these challenges will have to be overcome because there could be “at least three additional well fields besides” the Vista Ridge well field within the next 5-10 years that are “exporting groundwater outside of GMA 12.”
As imperfect as it is, the GMA joint planning process remains the best option available to bring stakeholders together to meaningfully consider all aspects of a region’s desired water future, including the protection of private property rights. The involvement of all stakeholders is the only way to optimize joint-planning outcomes. Toward that end, the authors recommend providing “GMAs with funding to improve communication of the science [and] improve public participation,” among many other far-sighted recommendations.
You can find the complete study on the Texas Water Journal website at twj-ojs-tdl.tdl.org.
Trey Gerfers is a San Antonio native and serves as general manager of the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District. He has lived in Marfa since 2013. He can be reached at tgerfers@pcuwcd.org.