by JEN BIUNDO
The city of Kyle has won its fight to pump up to an extra 185 million gallons of water per year from the Edwards Aquifer, bringing an apparent close to a two-year battle that pitted the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BS/EACD) against the fast-growing and thirsty city.
“This gives us additional water capacity for our tremendous growth,” said Kyle City Manager Lanny Lambert. “As the fastest-growing city in the region we have to do everything in our power to provide water to the citizens of Kyle.”
Hays County District Judge Charles Ramsey upheld the city’s motion for summary judgment last month, effectively ruling in favor of Kyle. A formal ruling scheduled for July 6 could also determine whether the BS/EACD must pay a portion of the city’s legal fees.
“We were obviously disappointed in the judge’s ruling but really this is just round one,” said Conservation District Executive Director Kirk Holland, noting that the BS/EACD Board of Directors may decide to appeal the case. “We still believe in the merits of our arguments. It’s certainly not over yet.”
The BS/EACD regulates wells that draw from the Edwards Aquifer, the underground web of porous limestone that stretches beneath central Texas and provides drinking water to many residents. But if local wells suck water out of the aquifer faster than rain can replenish it, the water table could drop, drying out wells and riverbeds.
Bill Bunch, executive director of the Save Our Springs Alliance and a party to the lawsuit, said the SOS continues to oppose the additional pumping rights for Kyle.
“The permit the city of Kyle was seeking would push the aquifer into drought stage faster and keep us there longer,” Bunch said. “The district’s own staff has said the aquifer is basically over-allocated already. We saw the application as making current conditions worse.”
One municipal well, located on Kohler’s Crossing near the Plum Creek Development, taps into the Edwards Aquifer. In 2008, following a decade of 500 percent population growth, Kyle leaders sought to increase their pumping rights from 165 million gallons to 350 million gallons per year.
But the board of the BS/EACD rejected the request, offering instead an increase to 265.7 million gallons per year. After several months of failed negotiations, the city sued the conservation district, claiming the BS/EACD failed to follow its own rules in denying the permit.
The extra water would be conditional on supply, with pumping rights decreasing during severe and critical droughts and being eliminated entirely during exceptional droughts. During those droughts, the city would have to limit pumping and replace that water from an alternate tap. The board rejected the permit, claiming the city failed to show proof of a surplus alternative water supply.
“Our board was concerned then and continues to be concerned about the city’s ability to substitute for that water,” Holland said. “We do not believe the city met its burden of proof in the evidence it presented. We just don’t want to be put in the position of telling a public water supply, you don’t have that right to pump that water or serve your customers.”
But Michael A. Gershon, the city’s attorney for water issues, said the surplus alternative water supply requirement was unlawful, but added that the city had actually shown proof of other water resources. That includes 141 million gallons permitted annually from the Edwards Aquifer Authority which governs the southern portion of the aquifer, 960 million gallons of surface water from the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority, 163 million gallons through the city of San Marcos and more water en route from the plentiful Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer via a pipeline being developed by the Hays-Caldwell Public Utility Agency.
“The city was very confident they could replace every drop of that water during a drought,” Gershon said.
The city also argued that the increased permitting wouldn’t hurt the aquifer or the environment, because the area around the Kyle well is somewhat disconnected from other parts of the aquifer. Rather than resembling one big basin, the aquifer is more like a series of underground chambers, some connected and some independent.
The city submitted hydrogeologic reports stating that “anticipated impacts to water levels of and interference with water production from neighboring wells will be insubstantial and practically negligible.”
“We were able to prove our well position is far enough away from other wells and in a spot at the aquifer where it would not do significant damage to the water table,” said Kyle Mayor Lucy Johnson. “We felt that SOS was just trying to push their argument without any evidence. I think that we proved otherwise.”
