Creekside Villas Senior Village wants to use well water to irrigate its landscape on FM 967 above Onion Creek. (Photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)
By WES FERGUSON
A new apartment complex in Buda is seeking a permit to pump nearly 2 million gallons of water per year from the Edwards Aquifer, and the city of Buda is just one of the opponents lining up to fight the application.
Creekside Villas Senior Village developer Colby Denison says he wants to use the well — which was drilled by a previous owner — to irrigate the apartment’s grounds at FM 967 above Onion Creek.
Creekside is the first entity to ever apply to the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District for a Class C conditional permit, which would require the well to stop pumping when Stage 2 alarm drought conditions are declared.
But even with the cut-off imposed during times of drought, Jennifer Walker, a water resources specialist for the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter, said the area’s water supply is already over-allocated, and it doesn’t make sense to develop a landscape of grass, shrubs, bushes and trees that requires 165,000 gallons of water per month to maintain.
“We simply cannot afford as a region and as a society to use water in this manner,” she wrote in a letter to aquifer district President Mary Stone.
Denison did not return phone calls seeking comment about the application, which he filed in October. John Dupnik, a regulatory compliance specialist for the aquifer district, said the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer board members would likely hold a public hearing and vote on the application at their June 14 meeting in the district offices at 1124 Regal Row in Austin.
“They’ve satisfied all the conditions, in the staff’s view, for an application for this type of permit,” Dupnik said. “When we prepare for the public hearing we will issue a staff recommendation for what (we suggest) the board will do.”
The amount of well water sought is “relatively small,” Dupnik said, noting that the city of Kyle’s permit allows it to pump up to 350 million gallons per year and the city of Buda’s permit allows it to pump about 200 million gallons.
In a letter to the conservation district dated May 21, Buda city engineer offers several reasons why city officials believe the permit should be denied:
• It could generate “unreasonable interference” to a pair of city-owned wells within half a mile of the proposed well location.
• Creekside is already connected to the city’s water system. Allowing a new water irrigation well to replace the city’s supply could affect Buda’s ability to recoup public funds spent to serve the property.
• If the conservation district approves the well permit, Creekside would fall out of compliance with the city of Buda’s uniform development code, which requires all subdivisions within half a mile of a city water line to connect to the existing water supply.
Two Buda residents and one Kyle resident also wrote letters opposing the well permit application. No one wrote in support of the permit.
Creekside Villas Senior Village
590 FM 967
512-295-1900
