SAWS’ water hopes are evaporating

The Colorado River may be drying up as a potential source of drinking water for San Antonio.

The San Antonio Water System is spending millions of dollars looking into bringing Colorado River water to the Alamo City, but scientific studies, and now maybe policy decisions by the board that oversees the river, continue to shrink the amount of water available and cause the estimated costs to skyrocket.

The SAWS board last month authorized spending another $5 million on studies this year, but SAWS President Robert Puente last week sent a letter to his counterpart at the Lower Colorado River Authority asking him to hold off spending any of the money until they can discuss the impact of decisions made later by the LCRA board.

Two weeks after the SAWS board reluctantly agreed Dec. 2 to fund the eighth year of studies, bringing its investment to $40 million, the LCRA board adopted policy resolutions that are expected to further reduce the yield of the proposed project.

What started out in 2002 as a potential project in which SAWS would spend $900 million to develop 330,000 acre-feet of water in the Colorado River basin in exchange for the right to pump 150,000 acre-feet of it to San Antonio each year for 80 years has turned into a $2.2 billion project, reduced by scientific and technical studies to a maximum yield to San Antonio of 90,000 acre-feet.

And the LCRA board’s policy decisions Dec. 17 could further trim that yield. The board decided to plan to meet all agricultural demands throughout the basin; not to tap into groundwater supplies for those needs if surface water is available; and to keep a 50,000 acre-foot reserve in the Highland Lakes above Austin for other customers in the basin.

Irrigators aren’t guaranteed water now, and a significant amount of the money that SAWS would spend if the project went forward would be to finance projects to provide a more reliable water supply to rice farmers.

But current studies show that for San Antonio to possibly get 90,000 acre-feet a year, those rice farmers would have to draw on groundwater supplies in 49 percent of the years. The new policy wouldn’t allow that, meaning more river water would go to farmers in dry years.

Although it might appear the 15-member LCRA board, whose appointed membership has totally changed since the contract was signed in 2002, is purposefully making it difficult for SAWS to continue with the project, LCRA spokeswoman Emlea Chanslor said the board simply is making sure the project protects and benefits those in the river basin, as it’s required to do.

“The board is required to find that the project benefits those in the basin and protects their needs, and we don’t want to get to the end of the study period and then determine they can’t make that finding,” Chanslor said.

The SAWS board spent some time behind closed doors earlier this month discussing the new developments, and Puente’s Jan. 14 letter expresses “our deep concern” to LCRA General Manager Thomas Mason.

“The unilateral action of the LCRA board has summarily placed in question the project’s continued viability,” Puente wrote. “We believe the LCRA board’s action is inconsistent with the project’s enabling legislation and the 2002 definitive agreement. We request an immediate opportunity to meet with you and your staff to better understand LCRA’s intentions.”

In the meantime, Puente asked the LCRA to minimize project expenses and defer SAWS’ 2009 payment obligations until March 31. Puente said $1.3 million of 2008’s study costs remain unspent and can be used to cover unavoidable costs in the interim.

But Puente said in an interview that “we’re not taking it as the death of this project or that all of a sudden we have to speed up all of our other projects,” noting the LCRA water wasn’t projected to reach San Antonio for another 15 years.

LCRA officials are calculating what the board’s action means for the proposed project’s yield and should have that within a couple of months, Puente said.

“We don’t have to make a decision until 2012,” Puente said. “This just makes us look at it sooner to see if it’s going to work for SAWS or not.”

SAWS officials can back out of the proposed project at any time and get back half of the $35 million they’ve spent on studies. But they’ll lose half and the $500,000 a year they’ve spent to reserve the water.

SAWS trustees have debated the past two Decembers whether the escalating cost and declining yield made it worthwhile to continue studying the proposed project, a transfer of water across river basins whose reliability was made firm only by special legislation.

Texas law otherwise makes out-of-basin pumpers get their water last, meaning it’s not there during drought shortages.

But it has had its critics, retired engineer and SAWS community adviser Larry Hoffman among them.

“The thing that amazes me is that the project has lasted this long because we don’t know what the firm yield is or what the cost is going to be,” Hoffman said. “The many users of water in that area have the highest priority, and in case of a drought, San Antonio might not get any water.”

The proposed project, which would provide almost half of what SAWS currently uses each year, is only one of several the utility has in the works, but most of them have problems with opposition, cost, low yield or not diversifying off the Edwards Aquifer.

“Everywhere we go trying to diversify, people are against us, whether it be in Gonzales County or Atascosa County or other parts of the state,” board Chairman Alex Briseño said before December’s board vote to proceed with another year of LCRA project funding. “So if we’re going to comply with that goal of reducing our reliance on the Edwards Aquifer, we’re going to have to realize it’s going to cost more money.”

Puente said the parties could use the opportunity to “renegotiate the contract to see what changes could be made. Tom Mason made sure that I know they still want to be in the project and that they’re looking to see what other sources of water might be available.

“Frankly, this just gives us another opportunity to once again look at the region as a whole to see what other avenues there might be to get involved,” Puente said. “So we’re just going to have to take as much good out of this as we can.”

-Jerry Needham, Express news