Needmore water permit up for consideration
The Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District Board of Directors will consider the application of Needmore Water LLC for conversion of a Temporary Production Permit to a Regular Historical Production Permit to authorize the withdrawal of an annual permitted volume of approximately 289,000,000 gallons per year of groundwater from the Trinity Aquifer. While a public hearing will be held on the topic, a vote is not required at this meeting but could take place.
The consideration of this permit follows a years long process that included the Trinity and Edwards Spring Protection Association challenging the permit with the State Office of Administrative Hearings. The challenge of the permit is based on the language of House Bill 3405, which incorporated Needmore Ranch into the BSEACD, and how TESPA feels it should be applied to the permit.
“Our argument is simple,” Vanessa Puig-Williams, Executive Director of TESPA, said. “Needmore Water was not eligible to apply for a temporary permit because to do so, you had to be operating a well at the time House Bill 3405 became effective. When BSEACD staff went out to the ranch, they saw that the well was inoperable, and they determined that the well was abandoned -yet they still let Needmore apply for a temporary permit under House Bill 3405, which created a less stringent permit evaluation process for eligible wells and essentially forced the District to issue the permit for the “maximum production capacity” of the well. This is why the issue of eligibility is so important - because under House Bill 3405, eligible wells were given license to pump more water than the District might have ordinarily allowed them to pump. But the key is that you had to be eligible - meaning that you had to be operating a well at the time House Bill 3405 became effective. In TESPA’s opinion, staff went out of their way to allow Needmore to apply for this permit in violation of the District’s rules. We are asking the Board to deny the permit and require Needmore to apply for a production permit under the District’s regular rules, where the District can consider whether the amount of water Needmore is requesting is reasonable given the intended use.”
Needmore Water’s permit states they will operate the well for agricultural uses. The well is located on Fulton Ranch Road in Wimberley. The staff of BSEACD is recommending approval of the permit with special provisions.
“The General Manager and staff have reviewed and determined that the regular permit application satisfies all District requirements for issuance and conversion to a Regular Historical Production Permit and is administratively complete,” BSEACD’s website for the permit said. “The GM has developed a Preliminary Decision and recommends that the Board of Directors approve the Regular Historical Production with Special Provisions for the requested annual permit volume of 289,080,000 per year for continued Agricultural Use. If approved by the Board, the Applicant will be required to comply with the drought curtailments of a Historical Trinity Production Permit as well as the terms outlined in the proposed Special Provisions. The special provisions recommended by the General Manager are a set of response measures, conditions, and requirements that are designed to be protective of aquifer conditions and to avoid unreasonable impacts to existing well owners.”
The application is set before the Board of Directors at a Special Called Meeting on July 29, 2019, at 4 p.m. at the City of Buda City Council Chambers Room 1097, 405 E. Loop Street, Building 100, Buda, TX 78610.
The Board will accept public comment at the beginning of the Board meeting. Public comment is limited to no more than three minutes and no more than two other speakers who are present and signed up to speak will be allowed to pass the speaker’s time to another speaker. For further information, please contact the General Manager, 1124 Regal Row, Austin, Texas 78748, (512) 282-8441, [email protected].