by KIM HILSENBECK
With the recent rain, some area residents may feel it’s time to relax water conservation restrictions. But the Kyle Public Works Department has other plans.
In fact, the city’s top leaders want to maintain the momentum already achieved in reaction to last year’s brutal drought.
“Our citizens are doing a good job conserving water. Why relax now?” says Jason Biemer, utility coordinator. “We’ve seen no predictions of a wet summer, and we can basically plan on another long stretch of rainless months.”
In addition to conservation methods, Kyle’s top leaders continue to look at various options for securing the city’s water future in preparation for more growth. One such possible option is drilling into the Lower Trinity Aquifer, which is below the Edwards Aquifer.
But city officials have not agreed on the expense of drilling into the Lower Trinity, with estimates ranging wildly from a low of between $50,000 and $60,000 to a high of more than $1.5 million, not including the expense of making the well ready for production.
From all accounts, any well drilled into the Lower Trinity, which would be about 1,800 feet down, would be an expensive endeavor. A new well in Garden Ridge, about 40 miles south of San Antonio, cost $525,000 to drill, according to Kyle City Manager Lanny Lambert.
“All told,” Lambert said in an email, “the price could exceed a million (dollars), or one small test well could be cheaper. We simply won’t know until we engineer a test well and bid it out.”
When asked for documentation, reports, cost-benefit analysis and water quality predictions related to the city’s efforts to drill into the Trinity, including the cost estimate for such a project, Lambert wrote last month, “I’ll ask, but since we haven’t done anything yet, I don’t know that we would have anything to give you.”
Despite Lambert’s claim, internal documents obtained by the Hays Free Press indicate the city has been studying the Lower Trinity as a well source for nearly a year. At the request of Lambert, Biemer launched an extensive review of the potential development in April 2011.
His early estimate, without well design, put the cost of a Trinity well at $300,000. A more recent – yet still preliminary – report dated Jan. 23 says: “This number was incorrect.”
According to the newer preliminary report, which was produced with input from GEOS Consulting of Austin and The Wellspec Company of Kyle, initial figures for developing a well in the Lower Trinity top $1 million.
But this figure does not include water testing, permits, pump systems, piping, control systems, or other necessary infrastructure, the report says. The preliminary report indicates a financial outlay in excess of $3.25 million.
Cost aside, there is still the question of the yield and quality of the water Kyle may get out of the Trinity Aquifer.
John Mikels of GEOS Consulting was one of the firms that provided input to Biemer. GEOS and The Wellspec Company also sought bids from drilling firms – only a few have the equipment to drill to the depth of the Lower Trinity.
“The quality of the water in that part of the Trinity (under Kyle) is really just unknown,” Mikels said during a phone interview.
Mikels, a hydrogeologist, likened the water well drilling endeavor to “wildcatting” – the risk of drilling for oil and gas in an area not known to have either.
In addition, parts of the Trinity are known to be highly saline.
Mikels said Kyle could drill a test well to help determine the quality and yield of the water, but cautioned that even a so-called test well would cost nearly as much as a full-scale well because of the depth and technical issues of drilling into the Trinity.
The internal report recommended rehabilitating and expanding current Edwards Aquifer wells rather than moving forward with the deeper drilling.
“A Lower Trinity well is not a viable option for the city at this time,” according to Biemer’s report.
