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Heads above Water
The Inside Story of the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Program
By Robert L. Gulley Texas A&M University Press
Copyright © 2015 Robert L. Gulley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62349-269-4
CHAPTER 1
"WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE"
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
— George Santayana, The Life of Reason, volume 1 (1905)
The first well known to have been drilled into the Edwards Aquifer was the work of the Judson Brothers Well Drilling Company, in 1888. Until that time, San Antonio had been dependent on water from the San Antonio River. Soon thereafter, George W. Brackenridge, president of the San Antonio National Bank and the San Antonio Water Works Company, had the Judson Brothers drill a well into the Edwards Aquifer on his property in what is now known as Brackenridge Park. Brackenridge was seeking a source of pure water for the Water Works Company to replace the algae-laden water from the San Antonio River. That well was successful, but the flow from the well was not adequate for use in Brackenridge's water works system. Three years later, Brackenridge partnered with M. C. Judson to drill a well into the Edwards Aquifer on property Brackenridge had acquired south of Market Street. That well and subsequent wells in the aquifer produced millions of gallons of water per day that were used to supply drinking water to the city of San Antonio. By 1900, the city's use of water from the San Antonio River for its drinking water supply was virtually replaced by water from the aquifer as the city continued to grow.
But with the continued growth of the city, and mindful of the effects of the drought of record, in the early 1960s both the US Study Commission and the Texas State Water Plan (1961) found that for the City of San Antonio to meet long-term municipal and industrial water requirements, "it will be necessary for San Antonio to obtain surface-water supplies."
In response, the City of San Antonio attempted to develop new alternative water supplies. None of the attempts were successful—in many instances because the political will was not there to invest in the future absent an immediate demand for additional water and because of the readily available supply of inexpensive water in the aquifer. The efforts to find alternative water supplies for the city have been fraught with disputes with the downstream interests, which contributed to the often acrimonious tone of most of the later debates.
Attempting to Develop Alternative Water Supplies for the San Antonio Area
During the drought of the 1950s the City of San Antonio adopted a master plan that recommended that the city participate in the construction of the Canyon Reservoir to develop additional water supplies to support the growth of the city.
In the 1930s, the US Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority began planning the construction of the Canyon Dam on the Guadalupe River. Severe flooding on the river and the onset of the drought of record accelerated that planning process. The dam and reservoir would provide both flood control and water for the river authority to provide to customers. Under the plan, the ACOE would own the dam and manage the reservoir. It would be entitled to the water in the flood control storage pool of the reservoir. The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority would pay 35 percent of the cost of the dam and would be entitled to the water in the conservation storage pool.
In 1953, the City of San Antonio tendered a "presentation" to the Board of Water Engineers (predecessor to the Texas Water Commission) to determine the feasibility of participating in the construction and cost of the project. The city wanted to have the height of the dam raised to allow the city to obtain one hundred thousand acre-feet of water from the reservoir that it would then transport to San Antonio to supplement the municipal supply. The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority opposed including the city in the project because it believed the dam should provide water to meet the demands of the Guadalupe Basin rather than the water demands of the City of San Antonio.
In 1956, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and the City of San Antonio filed competing applications with the Board of Water Engineers requesting water from the Canyon Reservoir. The city sought to obtain one hundred thousand acre-feet from the reservoir for municipal use. The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority sought fifty thousand acre-feet of water annually for municipal use, thirty-two thousand acre-feet for manufacturing and industrial use, and twenty thousand acre-feet for irrigation. On July 5, 1957, the Board of Water Engineers granted the application of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and denied that of the City of San Antonio. The city appealed both decisions. In 1966, the Texas Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the Board of Water Engineers.
While the dispute over the Canyon Reservoir was still raging, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority partnered with the San Antonio River Authority to build a dam and develop a reservoir on the Guadalupe River near Cuero, Texas. The project was a part of a larger plan, referred to as the SARA-GBRA Exchange, in which the authorities would exchange water from their respective basins and share proportionately in the cost of constructing two dams, one in the Guadalupe River Basin, known as the Cuero Dam, and the other in the San Antonio River Basin, known as the Goliad Dam. The construction of Cuero Dam was to be phase I of the project. This phase was to be completed in stages. In the first stage, the dam would be built on the main stem of the Guadalupe River. In exchange for sharing in the cost of the Cuero Dam, the San Antonio River Authority could remove up to 123,500 acre-feet of water annually from the Cuero Reservoir and provide it to municipalities in Bexar County through a pipeline that would be paid for by the City of San Antonio. The second stage would be built on Sandies Creek, a tributary of the Guadalupe, when the demand for additional water existed. This stage would make available an additional 56,500 acre-feet of water for the city.
The city was left out of the negotiations, however, because the City Water Board made "persistent" attempts to inject the Canyon project into the discussions, and the San Antonio River Authority was thus designated as the "proper negotiating agent." The San Antonio River Authority would have to work out any disagreements with the city. Both river authorities approved the project in June 1963.
The mayor of San Antonio, Walter McAllister, a strong political figure in the city, opposed the project. According to Lila Cockrell, who was on the city council at that time, Mayor McAllister opposed the project because much less expensive water was available from the Edwards Aquifer, because he did not favor partnering with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (with which the city was locked into a dispute about the Canyon project), and because the City Water Board had alternative, non-Edwards supplies that it believed could be developed.
On July 9, 1963, the City Water Board, probably influenced by the mayor's opposition, rejected participating in the project. Shortly afterwards, the San Antonio City Council supported the decision of the City Water Board and withdrew from the project. Instead, the city chose to pursue alternative reservoir sites on the Pedernales River in the Colorado River Basin and on the upper Guadalupe River in the Comfort area and the Blanco River near the Clopton Crossing in Wimberley, both in the upper Guadalupe River Basin. The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority "lawyered up" and vowed to fight the development of the alternative projects in the upper Guadalupe River watershed. Although discussions continued, neither the exchange project nor the alternatives adopted by the city were ever built.
In 1968, the Texas Water Plan called for the development of the Cibolo and Goliad Reservoirs in the San Antonio River Basin to meet water needs of the municipal and industrial users in the San Antonio area by 2020. The San Antonio River Authority had already begun discussions with the Bureau of Reclamation regarding federal funding for the construction of the Cibolo Reservoir. The San Antonio City Water Board expressed a strong interest in participating in the project. The San Antonio River Authority and City Water Board began discussions with Representatives Abraham "Chick" Kazen Jr. and Henry B. González to garner congressional support for the project.
The Cibolo project would have constructed a reservoir on Cibolo Creek in Wilson County just southeast of San Antonio with a firm yield of approximately twenty-four thousand acre-feet annually. The Bureau of Reclamation would pay for and construct the project under a contract with the San Antonio River Authority. The City of San Antonio would obtain approximately twenty thousand acre-feet of water annually from the reservoir, with the remaining four thousand acre-feet going to Karnes City and Kenedy in Wilson County.
In 1974, Congress appeared poised to authorize funding for the project, subject to the approval of the contract by the San Antonio City Council. However, the city had elected a new mayor, Charles Becker, and the trustees on the City Water Board had changed; John Schaefer, a local real estate developer, had become chair of the City Water Board Trustees. Mayor Becker opposed the project, and, in April 1974, Schaefer, only three months into the job, was called on to make a recommendation to the council regarding the position that the city should take on the pending congressional action. Schaefer, damning the project with faint praise and addressing the mayor indecorously as "Charlie," told the council that the board did not oppose the Cibolo Reservoir but that it should be built after the construction of another project, the Applewhite Reservoir.
The decision regarding whether to move forward with the congressional authorization prompted significant debate in the city council. Council member Lila Cockrell strongly supported moving forward with the Cibolo effort rather than waiting for the Applewhite project, which was only in the early stages of the planning process. "Time keeps marching on and we keep postponing and postponing. We still need the surface water and we still haven't got it," she stated. Ultimately, the City Water Board notified Congress and the Bureau of Reclamation that the city was interested in the Cibolo project but would continue to explore other options. Despite this less-than-enthusiastic support, Congress authorized the project in November 1974.
In 1975, the water board told the council that it did not intend to pursue the Cibolo project but instead would begin negotiations with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority to lease water from the authority's Canyon Reservoir. At that point, the Cibolo project was relegated to the stygian fate of San Antonio surface water projects.
In the mid-1970s, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority faced the first annual payment on the project: $308,890. Cities in the Guadalupe Basin had been reluctant to purchase Canyon Lake water, and the authority was not authorized by the legislature to raise revenues through taxes. Accordingly, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority offered the City of San Antonio an opportunity to purchase thirty thousand acre-feet of water from Canyon Lake in 1976, with an option to obtain an additional twenty thousand acre-feet. However, the contract was controversial. Some opposed the contract because of their belief that the water would be delivered to the more affluent north side of the city and be used to support development there. They favored the moribund Cibolo project, which would deliver water to the less affluent south and southeast side of the city.
On May 27, 1976, after approval by the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority Board of Directors and the San Antonio City Water Board, the Canyon Lake water contract was presented to the San Antonio City Council. Mayor Cockrell strongly supported accepting the contract. The chair of the City Water Board of Trustees, John Schaefer, told the council, "I think the consequences [of not approving the contract] could be disastrous."
Opposition to the contract was led by Mayor Pro Tem Glen Hartman. He opposed the contract because it was a "take or pay" contract and there was no evidence that San Antonio would need the surface water being offered. Council member Henry Cisneros, who would become mayor in 1981, also voted against the project. Cisneros explained that, before he made a decision on the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority contract, he wanted an update on the status, cost, and timetable for completing the Cibolo Dam that Congress had authorized in 1974.
The city council rejected the contract by a 5-to-4 vote. Years later, Mayor Cockrell observed, "Had we gone ahead with it[,] as of now, in 1992, we would have spent $17 million to $18 million. If you compared that to all the money already spent on the (now halted Applewhite Reservoir), you could see we'd have made a wise investment."
On November 15, 1977, the city council created the Water Resources Task Force, which comprised the City Planning Commission, Citizens Advisory Committee, and Technical Advisory Committee. The task force submitted its report to the city council in 1979. The report included three principal recommendations: (1) implement a water conservation program; (2) acquire fifty thousand acre-feet of water per year in order of priority from the upper Guadalupe River Basin, the Applewhite project, or the Cibolo project; and (3) establish a regional conservancy district to implement a "total management plan." The regional conservancy district would allocate Edwards Aquifer water and manage the aquifer, including implementing a strategy for conjunctive management of both surface water and groundwater. The report recognized that legislation would be needed to create such a district. Finally, the report recommended that negotiations with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority be renewed and that a regional forum be established to discuss the recommended strategies, with the Edwards Underground Water District taking the lead in the forum.
After discussing the recommendation, the San Antonio City Council on July 19, 1979, approved by a vote of 9 to 1, a three-part management plan that included conservation, recycling, and the construction of a surface water reservoir in Bexar County known as the Applewhite Reservoir.
The Applewhite Reservoir was a project that the city had been discussing since the early 1970s. It was expected to increase the water supply for the city by fifty thousand acre-feet. In June 1981, when the permit for the Applewhite project was under consideration by the Texas Department of Water Resources and approval very much in doubt because of a perceived ambivalence of the city regarding the project, the San Antonio City Council passed Resolution No. 81-34-64 by a vote of 7 to 4, reaffirming support for the Applewhite project. Nonetheless, public support for the project, which was not strong to begin with, was beginning to wane.
In the history of failed attempts by San Antonio to develop surface water supplies, one can see the tensions developing between the city and the downstream interests, particularly the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, that were dependent on springflow to ensure surface water availability.
At a political level, the City of San Antonio was being balkanized into factions of those who accepted the premise that the city needed to develop surface water supplies and those who did not accept the premise, either because the threat to urban water security from growth and development was not viewed as real or imminent or because of the ready availability of inexpensive Edwards water.
In 1981, in addressing the controversy on the council regarding the Applewhite Reservoir, Mayor Cisneros told the city council, "Now, this City has been rife with factionalism and strife on the question of surface water. Those who wanted Cibolo supported Cibolo and nothing else. Those who wanted Canyon supported Canyon and nothing else.... We know we need surface water and yet we cannot get a Council to put together the votes to go with a surface water program. It's pure and simple."
As we shall see, the city, the downstream interests, and others continued to come up with surface water alternatives—this time in the context of a region-wide, consensus-based effort that also included aquifer management. When that attempt failed, the tension from the earlier attempts resurfaced, the skirmishes stopped, and the water war began in earnest.
The Regional Water Resources Plan
In 1982, the City Planning Commission formed an ad hoc committee to review water planning issues. Consistent with a report the commission released in 1979, the committee recommended a detailed study of water needs and sources on a regional basis. The study would be undertaken in concert with the Edwards Underground Water District.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Heads above Water by Robert L. Gulley. Copyright © 2015 Robert L. Gulley. Excerpted by permission of Texas A&M University Press.
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