BREAKING: HB 4122: The Undoing Of #SaveOurWells? HB 4122 Moving To Texas House Floor This Morning

May 5, 2017

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BREAKING: HB 4122: The Undoing of #SaveOurWells? HB 4122 moving to Texas House floor this morning

A handful of members of the Texas Legislature have filed bills aimed at undoing the protections put in place by the Save Our Wells bill, authored and passed by Rep. Jason Isaac (R-Dripping Springs) with overwhelming community support in 2015.

In the 84^th legislative session, Rep. Jason Isaac, Senator Donna Campbell and Hays County Commissioner Will Conley worked together to propose several bills to save and protect local wells in Hays County.

During 2015, residents of Wimberley pushed local state representatives to stop a commercial groundwater pumping project. According to the Texas Tribune, the incident revealed a much wider issue.

Groundwater accounts for 60 percent of the 16.1 million acre-feet of water used in Texas.

In 2015, House Bill 3405 expanded the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer district to cover an unregulated Trinity Aquifer well. State Senator Campbell filed a companion bill in the state senate, Senate Bill 1440, to do the same.

Sen. Campbell also filed Senate Bill 1439 in companion to Rep. Isaac’s House Bill 3406, which expanded “the territory of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District” to “regulate wells of the Trinity Aquifer.”

Needmore Ranch, a pristine, 5,000 acre ranch along the Blanco River outside Wimberley, Texas, has applied for a massive groundwater production permit with the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD). TESPA is fighting this proposed permit.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature passed a bill which extended BSEACD’s jurisdiction over unregulated areas of the Trinity Aquifer in Hays County, including the eastern half of Needmore Ranch. Needmore applied for a permit in September 2015, and in November 2016, BSEACD issued a proposed permit to Needmore Ranch.

The amount of groundwater that Needmore has requested- over 289,000,000 gallons of groundwater a year – is excessive and will significantly drawdown the Trinity Aquifer.

Aquifer tests revealed that this amount of pumping resulted in fourteen feet of drawdown in a monitoring well 1.95 miles from the well on Needmore Ranch. BSEACD’s own modeling predicts that within seven years, pumping from the well on Needmore Ranch will cause 140 feet of drawdown.

TESPA represents the collective voice of landowners in Hays County and the Hill Country who want to protect their groundwater and who recognize the importance that groundwater plays in sustaining the ecology and the economy of the Hill Country.

TESPA is contesting Needmore’s permit request and has every intent to challenge this permit in court to protect the private property rights of smaller landowners and the public’s right to flowing rivers.

House Bill 4122 – The current version to be brought to the House floor today.

Read the history of #SaveOurWells bill and the current House Bill 4122 Corridor News coverage: