Trinity Glen Rose Mulls Water Limits

Directors of the Trinity-Glen Rose Groundwater Conservation District are considering the implementation of conservation measures – including a 5 percent reduction in pumping by heavy irrigators such as golf courses and rock quarries – as a drought tightens its grip on South Central Texas.

The board Jan. 8 instructed General Manager George Wissmann to bring a plan of action to implement those measures to its next meeting, scheduled for Feb. 12.

Wissmann recommended that the board consider declaring Stage 1 restrictions when he gave his report on the levels of monitoring wells and on drought conditions.

“We have not hit some of the low points we have seen, but we're getting close,” he said about monitoring well levels. “We are in a stress period.”

Wissmann said that the Palmer Drought Severity Index – an index of meteorological drought that also considers hydrologic factors such as precipitation, evaporation and soil moisture – indicates that South Central Texas, including Bexar and surrounding counties, has reached severe drought stage. The last update of the index occurred in mid-December.

He said other indicators place the region in an extreme drought.

Wissmann said that implementing Stage 1 restrictions would “create awareness out there.”

The district's rules allow directors to implement drought stages based on major public water systems' declarations of those stages, water-level data gathered from monitoring wells and the Palmer index.

The 5 percent reduction in pumping would affect so-called “non-exempt wells,” or those that are “equipped to produce greater than 10,000 gallons of groundwater per day” and do not qualify as an “exempt well,” according to district rules.

Exempt wells are used solely for domestic use or for providing water for livestock or poultry on tracts larger than 10 acres as long as the well cannot produce more than 10,000 gallons a day, subject to other conditions.

In addition to a 5 percent reduction in pumping, operators of golf courses, athletic fields, parks and irrigators of more than one acre that use non-exempt wells would be required to submit a conservation plan to the Trinity-Glen Rose GCD.

Recommendations for conservation measures include eliminating irrigation between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.

The district's rules also recommend various forms of water conservation throughout the year and during each drought stage declared by directors.

Also during the Jan. 8 meeting, directors learned that a bill will be introduced in the state Legislature that would allow the district to increase its production fee, its major source of revenue.

Board attorney Patrick Lindner said a draft text presented to State Rep. Frank Corte proposes a maximum fee of $40 per acre-foot.

The district now charges $10 per acre-foot, but directors have said in recent months that other groundwater conservation districts bring in much more revenue – primarily through ad valorem taxes.

-Robert Goetz