The Constant Crisis of S.A. Water

By Chris Marrou -- SA History Blog

San Antonio is in water trouble, again. Until this week, it was expected the little rain in the past 17 months would lead to a form of water rationing when the level of the Edwards Aquifer reached 660 feet (even with the rain, it was only at 666 feet above sea level on Friday). San Antonians and others dependent on the aquifer would have to water their lawns less often and take other steps, depending on how low the aquifer drops.

Talk of impending restrictions made me wonder what life was like the day the aquifer hit its lowest all-time level back in 1956. Now, I was around in those days, but as an 8-year old boy, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to water levels that summer; I seem to recall being focused on baseball and Mickey Mantle's big year (he hit 57 home runs). So I took a look back at San Antonio's newspapers for that year.
And found nothing. The day of the lowest level in aquifer history was August 17, 1956, when it reached 612 feet. That day, the next day, there was no mention of our area's imminent collapse due to lack of water. Where, I wondered, was the outrage? In fact, the word "aquifer" did not appear in any local newspaper that whole month.

On August 17, the forecast mentioned it would be cooling somewhat, with highs "only" in the high 90s. On August 18, the big story was Adlai Stevenson's re-nomination as the Democrat party's candidate for president.

I had to widen my search to include the entire summer to find any mention of our water supply. It seems that the formation of a new City Water Board was on the ballot in June, along with a 21 million dollar bond issue to improve water distribution. On June 17th, the San Antonio Light mentioned a need "to study future water needs and possible supplemental water supplies." On June 7th, the San Antonio Express called for approval of the water board proposal and bond issue, pointing out that by 1980 San Antonio would have 700 thousand residents (the population in 1980hit 786 thousand) and that extra water supplies would be needed (they weren't there in 1980 and weren't needed). Back then, the aquifer was called simply "the Edwards limestone," hence the lack of references to the aquifer.

Philosopher Ayn Rand once wrote that only governments can truly produce a shortage. After all, when something is available through the free market, supply and demand will balance out through price variations. It takes the power of government to get involved and really screw things up. The first oil crisis in the early 1970s came along not because the Arabs cut off our supply but because the Nixon administration tried to control the price of gasoline, not allowing it to rise. So guess what - supplies dried up and people couldn't find gas at their local filling stations. In 2008, prices of gasoline skyrocketed, but people cut back on their use of gas and prices came down again.

Our water supply is also under governmental control. No one is allowed to drill a well in San Antonio for water; only the Edwards Aquifer Authority and the San Antonio Water Systems can do that. Thanks to an arbitrary decision made by a federal judge 20 years ago requiring rationing to protect a minnow in the Comal Springs in New Braunfels, the level of "rationing" was set at 650 feet and more recently raised to 660 feet, just in case. In other words, government has managed to create a shortage when none existed before. Why 650 feet? Why 660 feet? Because that's what various governmental agencies decided would be the "right" time to start rationing so the level wouldn't get low enough to dry up Comal Springs. But like other governmental decisions, the final outcome has little to do with the original input.

In 1956, the Aquifer was drawn down to previously unforeseen levels - and nothing happened. The water was still available and still was fresh and clear. Admittedly, the Comal Springs went dry for awhile, which brings up another question. If that minnow in the springs can only be found there and the springs went dry in 1956 - what happened? Either the minnow was able to survive through that dry period or the minnow existed in other places - both of which mean the "endangered species" concept was pure malarkey. But we should know by now that reality is not what's important - the legal judgment is what counts.

So here we sit in 2009, worried that the Edwards Aquifer will drop below 660 feet above sea level, when the truth is it can't get above 703.3 feet (reached in 1992) because of springs that pop up all over south Texas when it's that high. So the amount of water we have to work with before rationing begins, 43 feet, is actually less than the amount of water we have available before we reach the old record low from the new rationing level, 48 feet!

In 1956, nobody worried about whether we would have enough water in the future, because they had faith in American ingenuity. Since then we have placed our faith and billions of dollars into government agencies that have actually made water less available and can give us no certainty that they will make any available in the future, as if it's our job to find more water despite all the money we give them. Thus it is with all government takeovers - we think we can trade freedom to get security, and we wind up with neither.