June 30, 2009
Matt:
Thanks for writing about the water-sharing effort made by the Lower Colorado River Authority and the San Antonio Water System. From a public policy viewpoint, however, it would be a shame if your readers surmised that this major water-planning effort was a backroom deal gone bad, as one reader put, another "Chinatown."
Nothing could be further from the truth. It was good science accomplished with a transparent and inclusive public process. The project will not provide the water originally estimated nearly a decade ago, but it was an honest process.
Here are some of the essentials:
In the late 1990s, the Texas Legislature moved away from top-down planning and passed Senate Bill 1, which declared there would be regional planning for water resources and set up representative councils. People in the lower Colorado River area, strongly linked historically, formed the Lower Colorado Regional Water Planning Group.
The San Antonio area also formed its group. The state calls the Austin area Region K and the San Antonio area Region L. Region L, needing to supplement the water it takes from the Edwards Aquifer and the endangered species the aquifer supports, said it would satisfy its future thirst, in part, by taking water from the Colorado River area one or more of 13 ways.
LCRA and its area, Region K, said no dice.
Region K (Colorado Basin) had its own problem: increasingly unreliable surface water for rice and row crop farming. Region K said that while farming might be diminished in the future, it should not die for lack of water. Already, farmers who rely on the Colorado River only get stored water that is not needed for human consumption and for environmental reasons (it is interruptible, in the sense that some electric power users can be interrupted when the electric power they consume is needed elsewhere.) So, the higher the municipal and industrial demand, the greater the possibility LCRA will cut farmers back in the future. (For instance, if we have the same amount of Colorado River water in storage - or less - at the end of 2009 as we do now, surface water for rice farming will be curtailed in 2010.)
What happened next was considered by many to be a breakthrough in state water planning. In 2001, LCRA responded to SAWS' plans to take Colorado River water by offering to share the water if, by sharing, the Colorado River basin would be protected and see some benefits. To solve the shortfall in water for agriculture, Region K and LCRA believed that conservation could reduce demand and dedicated groundwater wells could increase supply. By building an off-channel storage facility, excess water in the river and water from the Highland Lakes could be stored for SAWS.
This would cost a lot of money, which SAWS would be willing to pay if the projects also generated enough water for San Antonio. We set out to talk with our basin about what they thought would be a good agreement. They said the project would have to protect and benefit the Colorado River basin: more reliable water for agriculture; higher lake levels than there would be otherwise; water for the bays and estuaries; and the eventual return of the water after 80 years. Many of these were formalized in HB 1629, passed in 2001. Others went into the contract.
LCRA and SAWS went to a conference room in San Antonio and hammered out a complex contract. The contract we signed was to study the idea; if it worked, to try to get it permitted; if permitted and accepted by SAWS, to build it and deliver water. This is important and worth repeating: the contract requires LCRA and SAWS to find that the project is technically feasible and environmentally sound before we commit to its implementation.
San Antonio would pay for the studies and the infrastructure our basin needed to meet the requirements. But LCRA had skin in the game. If the study said the project failed to meet requirements or was too expensive or delivered too little water, LCRA had to ante up half of the study costs. To date, LCRA's potential share of costs is about $18 million.
There was no promise to deliver a certain amount of water to San Antonio. There couldn't be, if we were honest about our intention to study it and move forward only if it protected and benefited the Colorado River basin. We planned to run a good process and let the facts reveal themselves.
In June 2009, we reported that the project failed to meet all of the legislative and contractual requirements. A big impact was that LCRA had done a new population and water demand study for the Colorado River basin and found that demand would be significantly higher than anticipated earlier. We incorporated the new data into the SAWS study. With the large amount of water dedicated for environmental use and water demanded by a growing population, there would not be enough water to keep lake levels higher, meet all agriculture demands, etc.
Despite the negative findings, the project is not dead. SAWS, which has our report, has not cancelled it. LCRA would like to continue talking with San Antonio about options. LCRA did not pull the plug, it simply followed contract terms. Certainly, we have not breached the contract.
The audience of the Burnt Orange Report is probably used to seeing chemical companies, utilities and cities seek state permits despite evidence from consumer and environmental groups that the projects were worthless or even dangerous. This is different. In this case, one of the sponsors of the project - LCRA -- comes in before a nickel of implementation money has been spent with evidence that the project in its current form does not work. For doing this, LCRA is threatened with legal action by its partner, SAWS. But this is how the process is supposed to work. If good public input and good science cannot justify a project, should it be forced to go to the permitting phase? No, what we should do is keep talking about what is next. It is hot, there's a drought out there and people are still moving to Texas.
Robert Cullick
Robert Cullick, executive manager for communications at LCRA since 1991, has been involved in the LCRA-SAWS Water Project since its inception and participated in the contract negotiations with SAWS. He formerly was a water-and-energy reporter for the Houston Chronicle Austin bureau from 1988-1991 and won the Texas Outstanding Public Servant award from Public Citizen/Consumers Union. He covered the environmental and political impact of growth on Austin for the American-Statesman from 1981-1988.
