Hill County Working Toward A Different GCD…
Article submitted by The Reporter Newspaper
Closing arguments have been presented in writing to the administrative law judge who is considering the designation of a priority groundwater-management area (PGMA) in Hill and neighboring counties.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is seeking to designate Hill, McLen-nan, Bosque, Coryell and Somervell counties as a PGMA in order to force the creation of a groundwater-conservation district (GCD) for the Trinity Aquifer.
Hearings on the matter were held in Waco recently before State Office of Administrative Hearings Administrative Law Judge Paul Keeper. According to a TCEQ representative, once the designation is approved, counties in the area will have until September 2009 to form a GCD before the agency seeks to force the creation of one.
GCDs are designed to give local leaders control of water resources in their areas. They are created in one of two ways, either by the Texas Legislature or by local petition. Both require voters in the district to approve its creation.
They are funded by either ad-valorem taxes, user fees or a com-bination of the two. Most districts work to prevent waste, collect data, educate people about water conservation and pre-vent irreparable harm to the aqui-fer. By law, they must develop a groundwater-management plan outlining the GCD’s goals and the steps needed to reach those goals. The plan must be developed in coordination with appropriate surface-water management entities. A GCD could provide some added regulation of activities that will impact water supplies for the region.
Some areas in western portions of the Barnett Shale have been fighting injection and water wells that have been drilled by oil-and-gas firms.
The Texas Legislature has created districts for McLennan and Coryell counties, but they must be affirmed by voters by 2012 under the legislation.
The legislation also requires the two counties to have at least one neighboring county join their district. If a county fails to form a GCD, TCEQ’s executive director said in arguments presented to the judge that the agency will recommend the creation of one district to cover the five-county area or two district’s with counties combined with the GCDs created by the Texas Legislature.
Proposals in the arguments have Hill County joining McLennan in its GCD. The issue of representation on the McLennan County GCD board has Hill County Judge Justin Lewis looking for alternatives to that pro-posal.
He said that Johnson, Ellis and Navarro counties have expressed interest in aligning with Hill County to form a GCD. Representatives from Coryell County have asked that the desig-nation be delayed so that a new groundwater study can be com-pleted. Coryell County Judge John Firth has said that he believes the new study will show that the PGMA should be larger than the current five-county area proposed.
The report, expected to be finalized by August, would include more up-to-date and detailed in-formation about the threats to the Trinity Aquifer, according to Judge Firth.
The proposal to create the PGMA is based on a report authored by C. Leon Byrd with TCEQ.
The report, last updated in December 2007 to include actions taken by the Texas Legislature to create GCDs in Coryell and McLennan counties, is mostly based on data gathered before 2004, according to Judge Firth.
The arguments presented by TCEQ’s executive director said that a delay of the designation would be a waste of resources al-ready spent to get the ball moving.
Robin Smith, an attorney for TCEQ, said that since the new report would likely just further support the need for the PGMA, she saw no need to delay.
“TCEQ feels that it would be best to move forward in this case,” she said. “If the study would just support our conclusion, then there is no need to delay.”
She further said that nothing is stopping the two GCDs that have been created from recruiting other areas to join them.
The legislation requires that at least one adjacent county join the GCD and that it be affirmed by voters. It does not preclude the districts from seeking a broader area to protect.
The Texas Legislature created the process to form PGMAs in order to address expected water shortages in areas of the state where growth in demand is pro-jected to overtake supply levels.
The study says that the aquifer is in danger of depletion and becoming polluted over the next 15 to 25 years.