While a presentation from city staff indicated the city’s current water resources could handle a population up to about 35,000 to 40,000, a Boerne water committee is looking to alternative 100-year solutions for the city. However, some of these solutions may be tied to some controversial legislative efforts out of a neighboring metropolitan city.
The water committee heard from a director with the Edwards Aquifer Authority – the regulating agency that oversees the management and protection of the Edwards Aquifer that was formed by legislation in 1993.
The agency encompasses several counties wholly and partially, including Uvalde, Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Atascosa, Hays and Caldwell counites. Currently, water from the aquifer can only be contracted with counties within its service boundaries.
One problem the EAA has with this parameter is it cannot distribute resources to an entire county if its boundaries only encompass a portion of that county – an issue that arises in counties where only a small corner or section is encompassed by the EAA boundaries, especially considering the agency has fulfilled all available contracts in its service area while remaining below its annual aquifer-draw cap outlined in its forming legislation.
Under the current legislation, the San Antonio Water System – the agency that distributes Edwards Aquifer water – cannot sell water to neighboring counites outside of its boundaries, which includes Kendall County. While changing this has often been a controversial subject over the years, with contention arising in previous legislative efforts to change the limitation, city officials and water committee members aren’t ruling anything out.
However, there have already been strong words against considering such legislative efforts, including statements made by Milan Michalec who spoke at a Boerne City Council meeting both as a concerned citizen and the president of the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District – the agency charged with regulating and protecting aquifers in Kendall County.
“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 in reference to legislative changes allowing the wholesale of Edwards water to neighboring regions.
Marc Friberg, executive director of external and regulatory affairs for the EAA, recalled a 2019 legislative effort from the EAA that included two measures, allowing the agency to sell to entire counties where their boundaries only encompassed a portion of the county – like Comal, Guadalupe and Atascosa counties – and allowing the agency to wholesale water to adjacent counties.
The legislation failed in 2019, which Friberg chocked up to the wholesale component, but he said the EAA likely will draft legislation for the next state legislative session to allow the agency to distribute “Edwards Aquifer molecules” across the entirety of every county its boundaries overlap. Should Boerne officials seek access to SAWS or Edwards water, a wholesale provision would need to be drafted for legislatures or another legislative effort would need to be made.
The Edwards Aquifer conversation is one of a handful of solutions being considered by the local water committee. Last month, the Boerne City Council heard about a chance to tie into a major pipeline out of Guadalupe County to pump water up and down the Interstate 35 corridor, something Boerne Utilities Director Mike Mann said was a tough $50 million pill to swallow considering the size of the Boerne community.
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