With no end in sight for the development boom hitting Boerne and Kendall County, a countywide water committee is looking to long-term supply solutions, including controversial Edwards Aquifer water.
While the Kendall County Water Committee has focused on conservation solutions to preserve and further existing water supply sources, the committee set its sights on identifying long-term supply solutions for a booming population during a meeting last week.
“During a time of drought, it’s probably the most opportune time to talk about water and the reality of water and the reality of supply and a firm supply that we’re going to have going into the future,” committee member Tommy Mathews said. “For the people that are here now and whatever growth is determined to happen, whether it’s managed growth or uncontrolled growth. I’ve got strong opinions about that. But it’s our job to make sure the water resources are identified. And if we don’t have them identified, what are the mechanisms and studies that need to be done to accomplish that form a technical standpoint?”
Committee member Ben Eldredge said the city’s water utility has been seen as a means to manage growth, allowing city officials and staff to enter into development agreements. However, he said this requires city leaders to act with good faith with the residents’ wishes in mind, otherwise the utility becomes a tool to encourage rapid growth and development.
While committee Chair Patrick Cohoon said the committee simply was tasked with finding water supply solutions rather than a growth or development policy, he said the committee should include pros and cons associated with each water supply solution. He sought a list of several long-term solutions the committee could present to the Boerne City Council, leaving the final decision up to the policymakers.
The committee has taken several largescale projects into consideration, including a wholesale water agreement with San Antonio Water Systems – which would require legislative change to allow the sale of Edwards Aquifer water into Kendall County – and joining in on a massive Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority pipeline out of Gonzalez County.
The EAA has sought legislative change to allow the wholesale of water to an entire county where the EAA’s certificates of convenience and necessity partially overlap county lines. This would impact Kendall County, where SAWS has a small portion of its CCN overlap, but the SAWS board recently pushed to have its CCN stop at the Bexar-Kendall county line.
Donovan Burton, vice president of water resources and governmental relations for SAWS, said a wholesale agreement between his agency and Boerne would require legislative change to sell Edwards water outside of the EAA’s boundaries unless the city tied directly into its new Vista Ridge connection. However, Edwards water would likely still be necessary as a backup source.
This 140-mile pipeline recently went online, connecting SAWS to the Carrizo-Wilcox in Burleson County and pulling in around 50,000 acre-feet of water per year to San Antonio.
When asked if the Vista Ridge connection is projected to be a firm supply of 50,000 acrefeet, Burton said current SAWS projections indicate it will be, but future planning will have to take into consideration drought conditions and increased connections caused by the nearly $200 billion Samsung development in Taylor.
“We have to look just beyond our boundaries,” Burton said of the Vista Ridge project. “Unfortunately, we can’t just leave it to right in our county. We can’t just take it all from the Edwards Aquifer because that has issues as well. So, to lock up some of these supplies that we need, again we’re doing as much as we can on the demand side, but you have to go outside the county and sometimes as far as 140 miles away.”
State law established in the 1990s during the creation of the Edwards Aquifer Authority prohibits the sale of Edwards water outside of agency’s set boundaries which encompasses several counties wholly and partially. Previous legislative attempts to allow wholesale water to neighboring counties have failed as recently as 2019.
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