Stat of the Barton Springs Aquifer in 2014
Craig Smith
THE STATE OF THE AQUIFER IN 2014
The Barton Springs Aquifer near the beginning of 2014 is –
REPLENISHED at last by the record rains of last October. Most of the rain fell in just two storms, ending the severe drought that began in October 2010, the last time that the Aquifer was what you might call full.
The Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District declared an Alarm Stage drought on November 15, 2012 when springflow declined to 38 cubic feet per second (“cfs”). District permittees – public water supply systems serving communities such as Buda, Creedmoor, and Kyle, as well as industries and irrigators -- were required to reduce their water withdrawals by 20%. Critical Stage drought was declared on April 27, 2013, requiring a 30% reduction.
The District responded to the deepening drought by defining two new conservation stages requiring more severe curtailments: an Exceptional Stage drought which would require a 40% reduction in pumping and an Emergency Response Period that would demand a 50% curtailment if Barton Springs flow came near to its historic low. Such a severe drought would test the permittees’ and consumers’ ability to conserve water and the District’s ability to enforce the pumping restriction, as well as the ability of all life dependent on the Aquifer to survive.
The crisis was avoided when springflow had dropped to 14 cfs on October 8, 2013 and then the rain came on October 11. Characteristically for a karst aquifer riddled with caves, conduits, and sinkholes through which groundwater moves rapidly, the water level came up dramatically. Springflow had increased to 89 cfs by November 14, when the board voted to declare the Aquifer drought over and end the pumping restrictions. Water conservation, however, remains a constant aim of the District. (As many have pointed out, the rains that refilled the Aquifer did not fall farther west in the watershed of the Highland Lakes that are Austin’s water supply. So the drought and water use restrictions still continue for Austin Water Utility customers.)
We were lucky last fall, but the Aquifer has already begun to decline again. Drought will inevitably come back, speeded by global warming and ever-increasing water demand. The steps the District has taken to respond to the last drought will make us better prepared for the next one when it comes.
And the Aquifer is MANAGED sustainably by the Barton Springs Aquifer District to achieve a self-defined Desired Future Condition (“DFC”) of no less than 6.5 cfs of springflow from Barton Springs during a repeat of the drought of record, the most severe in memory. Such a level would be less than the lowest ever recorded during the great drought of the 1950’s but much more than the total cessation of flow projected to occur if pumping continued unabated at contemporary levels during a return of such a drought.
Unlike in the 1950’s, when the area’s population and water demand were much less, the Aquifer today supplies the domestic water needs of 70,000 people or more, as well as the industrial and irrigation needs of many employers. Meeting those human needs while also supplying the environmental needs of the Aquifer ecosystem is the District’s main challenge.
To sustain the ability of the Aquifer to meet all those demands even in drought, the District has put a cap on the historical permits that allow withdrawal of water under all conditions. After September 9, 2004, the only new permits available other than for household wells are conditional permits allowing withdrawal of water only when the Aquifer is not in drought. Applicants must prove that they have an alternative water supply that they can turn to when drought returns.
The cap on “firm yield” permits and the progressively more severe pumping limitations are meant to make it possible to maintain the DFC of 6.5 cfs in a return of a drought of record, an event that no longer seems unlikely, but inevitable. The rules are the basis of the District’s habitat conservation plan (“HCP”), now in its final stages of preparation before submission to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Although the plan will seek a permit for incidental “take” of the endangered salamanders caused by unavoidable depletion of springflow, the real aim is to avoid any “taking” of the creatures by preserving springflow at a level that will insure their survival, while also meeting basic human needs.
The competing human and environmental water demands have caused the District to look for alternative water supplies to meet some of those demands. Potential options include the Trinity Aquifer and desalination or aquifer storage and recovery (“ASR”) in the “bad water zone” east of Interstate 35. But the most plentiful and promising alternative source is the one that is closest to us: the wastewater that we are used to disposing of but now realize is too valuable to waste. A Working Group of local governments including the Aquifer District is proposing a regional study of wastewater management and reuse with the aim of turning a water quality problem into part of the water supply solution.
But the Aquifer is still THREATENED by residential and commercial land disturbance in the recharge and contributing zones, highway construction, excessive wastewater loading, and the diffuse contamination that comes from being located in an urban setting.
The boom in Central Texas that slowed briefly during the recession has come back at full speed, as everyone can see. While some of the growth has taken the form of new downtown housing and redevelopment such as the Mueller project, much of it has fed old-fashioned sprawl, including new subdivisions in the Aquifer contributing zone outside of Austin’s jurisdiction. Since the passage of the SOS Ordinance in 1992, a common development pattern has been to leapfrog outside of the City limits and extra-territorial jurisdiction into the unincorporated county or the jurisdiction of another city where the rules are laxer or nonexistent or to build on preexisting lots that are “grandfathered” and exempt from the requirements.
A long-dormant highway project, State Hwy. 45 SW across the heart of the recharge zone, has come back to life, revived by Hays and Travis County officials even though the road was removed from the Imagine Austin master plan. This project has been on the drawing board for 25 years and has often been the contentious subject of elections and litigation, as it may be again. A 1990 Consent Decree agreed to in federal court between the Barton Springs Aquifer District and the Texas Department of Transportation (“TxDOT”) imposes water quality protection requirements, but the Consent Decree would not apply if another agency besides TxDOT built the road. The District has accepted the invitation to be a partner in the environmental assessment under way to evaluate the potential environmental impact of the highway and its construction, as well as the transportation alternatives. The results are not expected later this year, although the Travis County Commissioners have already voted funds for construction.
One of the most serious threats to the Aquifer comes from a plan, not yet filed, by the City of Dripping Springs to expand its wastewater treatment plant and discharge the treated effluent to Onion Creek, the creek that provides the most recharge to the Aquifer of any. The proposal to discharge wastewater just a few miles upstream from where it would recharge the Aquifer and could soon be drawn up in domestic wells and consumed without adequate treatment is not just a danger to public health, it is a waste of a precious resource in a dry land. The Aquifer District and others are urging Dripping Springs to devise an alternative plan that will put the wastewater to a beneficial and nonpolluting use.
The Aquifer is still DEFENDED by a broad coalition of Central Texans who recognize the irreplaceable value of such a bountiful and clean groundwater resource. The defenders are fighting back and working to insure that the Aquifer can continue to support life and enjoyment in Central Texas 50 or 100 years from now.
The most effective, though expensive, means of defense has been to simply buy land or conservation easements in the contributing and recharge zones, sometimes with the aim of preventing damaging projects from occurring. Most recently, the Austin City Council approved spending $18 million to buy the land that would have become the Jeremiah Venture development near Buda. While it is not possible to buy the entire watershed, that is sometimes the best way to protect the most vital parts.
Of course, Barton Springs still captures the imagination of Central Texans, for whom the reality of a cool, bountiful spring in the middle of a (usually) hot, dry city is something close to a miracle. Organizations such as the Friends of Barton Springs Pool, Sierra Club, Save Barton Creek Association, and Save Our Springs Alliance, and are still on alert, and the defense of the Springs is still a cause that rallies broad support. It is a defense we will have to keep up for as long as we want the Springs to keep flowing.
Craig Smith
Director, Precinct No. 5
Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District
E-mail: ccrai...@austin.rr.com