Michael Mann can’t say it enough: The city of Boerne has enough water to sustain the current population and limited, controlled growth for a few more decades.
“We have water to the time of 2050; if we go low growth and low water use, it’s until 2070,” Mann said. “But somewhere between 2060 and 2070, we feel comfortable that we have enough water until then.”
Water proved to be a lively discussion topic during the March 11 City Council meeting. City Manager Ben Thatcher opened the discussion and handed over to Mann, Boerne utilities director.
Thatcher said water supply was mentioned on 18% of responses to the city’s most recent community interest survey in December, with the all-too-often repeated comments of “Boerne is ... running low/running out of water.”
City Council members read survey questions that came from constituents in their districts. District 2 Councilwoman Sharon Wright quipped, “This is a good one” as she read: “Recalculate how long water will last. I don’t feel it’s accurate; publicize contingency plans for running out of water.”
Since the 1950s, Boerne has held to a policy not to serve areas outside the city limits unless it’s deemed beneficial by the City Council in development agreements.
“But the community perception is Boerne doesn’t have enough water,” Mann said.
“When you are in a drought, especially a prolonged drought, then not only can the supply be limited, the curtailment from the groundwater conservation district, maybe even GBRA surface water rights has curtailments, so you get limitations on the water that is available,” he said.
“Because it’s not raining, and you have demand increases that are exponential, a lot of folks want to put water on the landscaping, so it’s kind of a double whammy.”
When Mann started in Boerne in 2020, he began to watch developments just outside the city’s boundaries.
“We do have enough water to serve what we’re committed to right now,” he told council. “But it’s in our power, in your power (as council), to make sure that we don’t over-allocate.
“That’s your prerogative because of the (growth) policies that we have in place, not serving outside the city limits or what council deems is beneficial.
“We’re not overallocated at this point; we have enough water for the population,” he added.
City water use is comprised of 72% surface water, 15% groundwater and 13% reclaimed water.
“If you look at that reclaimed water, it’s almost up there with groundwater. It’s significant,” Mann said. “That equates to 2,607 acre-feet of surface water, 532 acre-feet of groundwater and 480 acre-feet of reclaimed water.”
In the last 10 years, the city has grown from a service population on potable water from 13,000 to about 25,000. In that same time, use of reclaimed water has grown from 0 meters to 3,226, “so the percentage of people with reclaimed water is increasing,” use that keeps the city from using potable (drinkable) water for landscape purposes,” Mann said.
Community perception, as expressed many times in the December community survey, is the city doesn’t have enough water. Mann tried to explain why that happens.
Conservation also plays a role in Boerne’s water usage.
“From 2017 to 2024, it’s down from 162 gallons (per person per day) down to 115 gallons per person per day,” he said. Reclaimed water use for that same period has held pretty steady between 13 and 18 gallons per person per day.
Boerne City Lake was last full in 2022, and has dropped steadily since. “The lake is 42 feet deep; last October it got down to 28.75 feet, and that’s the lowest we’ve seen it,” Mann said.
Currently, the lake depth is a little over 29 feet. “It’s come up just a little, about 6 inches, since the low in the fall. But right now, depending on how you look at it, it’s either 56% full as an optimist or 44% empty as a pessimist.”
But what Mann finds encouraging is that the city is in the middle of a prolonged drought “and we still have half of the lake available.”
“We can only, by permit, withdraw 833 acre-feet per year,” he said. “That’s the same number that we’ve had since the lake was built in the ‘70s, and we typically use as much of that as we can, again to minimize the use of groundwater.”
Mann said he relies on water studies conducted in years past to project water usage, growth and how the two relate.
“But suffice it to say, I hope that we generally have enough water to serve between 45,000 and 50,000, maybe a little bit more,” he stated.
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