While water access remains stable in Boerne for now, city officials are eyeing solutions to serve the growth of the city in the next 100 years.
As water remains a precious commodity across Texas and the Hill Country and local officials are beginning to prepare for the seemingly never-ending growth boom hitting Boerne, the Boerne City Council received a pitch from the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority to pipe water into town from all over the region. While this wasn’t outright shot down, there were mixed messages from officials and attendees alike.
“I think the sense of urgency I heard from you (Darrell Nichols) is not to make a decision right now but to be engaged and be involved with what’s going on, on a broader scale and all the options right now,” Boerne Mayor Tim Handren said. “At the same time, while our group (the water committee) is doing their homework, we’ll continue to get educated. What I heard from you is we need to start getting a little more involved at an entity level.”
Darrell Nichols, Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority senior deputy general manager, said the company’s contract with San Antonio Water Systems will cease in 2038, leaving thousands of acre feet of water up for grabs. However, it’s unlikely it will lead to a huge influx of water to Boerne as all municipalities served by GBRA have requested additional acre feet made available by the contract’s end.
Nichols noted a massive infrastructure project in development where groundwater from Gonzalez County will be piped 150 miles through New Braunfels and down the Interstate 35 corridor. Currently, the project is set to dead-end right around the I-35 and Loop 1604 interchange, but Nichols said Boerne could join other municipalities in the massive undertaking, leading to water from this project reaching Boerne.
Nichols roughly estimated the project would cost between $500 million and $800 million, which would be split among the participating municipalities.
District 4 Councilmember Bryce Boddie expressed some concern about pulling resources from another area of Texas that could also see development and growth, leaving the area lacking resources.
“So, one of the questions I have that I think is very important has to do with drought record,” Boddie said. “This is not necessarily directed at you Darrell (Nichols) but the water planning committee. As a whole, it started in (19)47 or about 1950 to ’57, and our population was way different – way, way different. And what could happen within the next 100 years, the drought record could be devastating for Gonzalez (County).
“I mean, water doesn’t care. It doesn’t take us into consideration. It does what it’s going to do. It evaporates and goes somewhere else and doesn’t fall on our land. So, I understand the concern about development because it’s not just us. It’s that if we did pursue that type of stuff, it opens things up in the future.”
Boddie urged the water committee to consider how to continue on with conservation and to develop numbers on what kind of population growth can be supported by existing and other potential water sources, especially considering drought habits and potential.
Milan Michalec spoke to council members as a concerned citizen but also with his experience as the Precinct 2 director and president for the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District, expressing concerns about any “easy” or “quick” solutions.
“When the water committee met on the 22nd of March, the highlight of the agenda was a review of GBRA potential sources followed by a sense of urgency to get onboard now or miss out on the next affordable water,” Michalec said. “In my opinion, though this might be a tempting easy fix – just buy more through an engineered solution, other options exist and should be presented as viable options to be racked and stacked based on a clear necessity accompanied by a risk analysis.”
Michalec voiced a particular concern with any solutions that would lead to Edwards Aquifer water being pumped into Kendall County, which was made illegal after the establishment of the Edwards Aquifer Authority in the early 1990s.
“From my experience studying the history of local groundwater issues, this would destabilize an existing water market and risk the blunt axe of federal intervention that was instrumental in the creation of the EAA,” Michalec said.
District 5 Council Member Joe Macaluso said while he isn’t afraid of growth, he was afraid overloading water resources to the city could influence growth.
However, Handren reminded the council there is a finite number of resources available to plan with. He said his view is these projects aren’t intended to fuel growth but to ensure there are reliable resources to manage the “growth they want to plan for.”
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