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The Colorado River The South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group's draft report, issued in June 2000, suggests diverting 100,000 to 150,000 acre-feet per year from the Colorado River near the coast towards San Antonio. There is a lot of unused, unappropriated surface water available from the Colorado River; and there is a lot of deep-seated opposition toward letting San Antonio have any. Though such a project would be many years away if it happens at all, residents of the Highland Lakes area started organizing in 1995 to squelch diversions of Colorado River water (1). At that time, a Texas Water Development Board study recommended piping water from the Austin area toward San Antonio. Another option was tapping the Colorado at Columbus and pumping water along Interstate 10 to San Antonio. By March '96, Highland Lakes area residents had organized the "Oppose the San Antone Hose" campaign, including a letter-writing campaign to Governor Bush. Residents feared that diversions would cause lake levels to drop and devastate the recreation-based economy (2). In February 2000, about 300 people attended a meeting of the Water Planning Group and suggested that San Antonio could choke on its own dust before they got a drop of Colorado River water (3). As usual, many were critical of San Antonio for decades of poor water planning. Others insist that opponents are not seeing the big picture, the region is one economic entity, and solutions can be found that will foster economic growth and development for all of South Texas. Overcoming regional parochialisms and getting everyone to see we are all in this together is one of the most difficult institutional issues that will have to be overcome. In January 2001 the San Antonio Water System Board and the Lower Colorado River Authority reached a deal that would allow San Antonio to purchase up to 150,000 acre-feet of water for up to 80 years, ensuring San Antonio's water supply for most of this century (4). The project involves building a pumping facility to divert floodwaters from the Colorado, a 170-mile pipeline, several storage ponds, and a treatment facility at a cost of up to $1 billion. Water would then be used to grow local crops and also be sent to San Antonio. SAWS and the LCRA agreed on a seven year study to determine the environmental effects of the project such as the impact on sensitive bays and estuaries. LCRA general manager Joe Beal said the project would benefit farmers near the Texas coast because they might otherwise lose their water to growing towns along the river and money from San Antonio could pay for conservation projects that could keep them in business. Also, Beal said that towns around the Highland Lakes would benefit because lake levels would not have to drop as much to satisfy downstream needs. Representative Bobby Cook of Eagle Lake said "This water sharing plan represents a new chapter in state water planning, one in which citizens and their leaders have decided to cooperate rather than fight over water." (5). To make the deal possible the Texas Legislature, when it met in 2001, had to approve a law that allows the LCRA to sell water outside its boundaries. The LCRA had been prohibited from doing so by the law that created it. In Februrary 2001 representatives of the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Sierra Club said they would not oppose the proposed project if it was clear that environmental concerns would be adequately addressed. They asked the project not be hurried forward until studies determine how much water can be removed from the Colorado without reducing freshwater flows into Matagorda Bay below critical levels. SAWS' officials said the potential environmental impacts will be studied and factored in before the project is advanced, and the House Committee on Natural Resources unanimously approved for consideration by the full House a bill that would authorize the LCRA to proceed (6). In May 2001 the bill was approved by the House and sent to Governor Perry for his signature (7). On February 18, 2002 the Board of the San Antonio Water System approved an 87-year contract with the Lower Colorado River Authority (8). A few days later, the Board of the LCRA also approved the deal (9). On February 27 both agencies formally signed the deal (10). The first seven years will be a study period during which SAWS will fund studies to determine if the project is economically feasible and environmentally sound. If it is, the project will enter an implementation period. It is likely the water will not actually be delivered to users in San Antonio until after 2020. In February of 2004, the SAWS Board approved a $43 million, multi-year schedule of environmental, engineering, and social studies to completely evaluate the project's feasibility (11). Many persons, including Board trustees, expressed concern about the cost of the project, but the Board decided to proceed knowing it can drop out of the project if initial studies begin to show the amount of water projected isn't available or there would be environmental problems in the Colorado River or Matagorda Bay. The schedule includes $9.1 million for evaluating impacts on Matagorda Bay, $2.3 million for other environmental studies, $4.2 million to study groundwaters that would be used for agricultural during droughts, and $3.2 million for studying how to achieve conservation in irrigation districts. In March of 2005, the Boards of SAWS and LCRA met to review progress, and LCRA general manager Joe Beal noted "At this point in time, from an environmental standpoint, there's no real project stoppers that have been identified." |
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Materials used to prepare this section: (1) "Group takes stand on water" San
Antonio Express-News, December 24 1995. |