A list of Harmful water management activities that must be remedied immediately:

 The Edwards Aquifer groundwater needs rescuing as if it were a neglected elder in a poorly managed nursing home at the mercy of  Aquifer Authority directors who are allowed to manage their own elections and manage to have no elections as if they were a private groundwater profiteers club  in a system that allows for no correction. The aquifer management is undergoing a lot of management programs involving a lot of people but the priorities are focused upon private profits and not on protection of the aquifer.

I urge citizens to write their leaders and governor and insist upon  a moratorium on current agreements and prohibit future agreements of any Municipalities in which they agree   not  t o hold Edwards Groundwater pumpers liable for damages to their cities and citizens caused by over allocation and over-pumping of groundwater or resulting declines in water and groundwater quality and quantity.

Also to recall the amendment in the  Federal  US Endangered  Species Act  that  was implemented in 2000  that requires stakeholder steering committees(instead of  science experts)  to  vote upon which model designs, data inputs and assumptions to allow scientists to use in  advising and assessing risks  for  the determination of minimum springflows and instream flows to the coast.

Stop profiteering from causing declines in Texas surface water and groundwater quality, quantity and availability now! This year we are not in our worst drought but we are headed toward our state’s worst water crisis because of groundwater profiteering and aquifer management policies and laws that have accelerated the significant decline of our aquifers.

Texas citizens have been abandoned to the mercy of groundwater profiteers causing an end to spring flows, surface water flows and an end to high water quality with immediate severe declines in wildlife and human health, and punctuated aquifer depletions around much of Texas. It is also blocking progress toward efficient water use, reuse and conservation and non-aquifer water storage and supply alternatives.

Citizens of Texas deserve correction and  immediate  remedy  for harmful management strategy decisions and leadership  focused upon maximizing groundwater profits  by the State legislature and the  Edwards Aquifer Board of Directors over the last 13 years and out of current groundwater districts set up to function like the current Edwards Aquifer Authority board.  Not only have they not been successful in managing pumping and groundwater quality  for protection of the public good but their decisions to make groundwater profiteering a priority have made a very dangerous situation for our groundwater, our aquatic habitats, our economies and our health.  

1) Demand immediate  dismissal of all Edwards Aquifer Authority Board directors and HCP implementation committees and place a moratorium on rules and legislation involving groundwater marketing programs, Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan and SB3 critical period strategies which set a priority on maximizing pumping.  Distortions by the Edwards Aquifer Authority board implementing harmful management and HCP strategies that drain the Edwards aquifer are harming our groundwater resources and spring flows.   We insist that the Texas Water development Board determine and implement immediate limits upon pumping so that  ALL withdrawals allowed and permitted do not total more than  the sustainable for the aquifer  then set in action  standard s and  methods of water conservation and non aquifer water storage and supply  strategies  to achieve that amount of aquifer withdrawal permitting. We further insist that the TWDB take over the budgeting of aquifer fees and budgeting of pumping management and groundwater quality protection.

2) Insist that TWDB immediately develop and implement Critical period pumping permit reductions to be applied to critical periods and result in the necessary and appropriate reduction in pumping during critical periods (which is not happening now).

3) Demand an end to the Edwards aquifer authority and other groundwater districts being considered “special boards” that manage their own elections.  No aquifer board member(s) should be allowed to draw their own district lines or manage their own election(s) or to appoint who fills either their own or other district’s positions. Each position must be filled by an election from their district’s voters and when vacated emergency elections in the district must be held. In addition there must exist recall procedures for the district to be allowed to call an emergency election for recall if a petition for recall captures a number of signatures equal to or greater than 20% of the number of voters voting in the last election for that seat.  At this time there are no recall procedures.

4)Insist  that groundwater boards including the Edwards Aquifer be legislatively structured to not allow those with large amounts of groundwater permitted or those invested in businesses involved with large  groundwater withdrawals  or profits resulting from large permits or withdrawals to serve on the board due to conflicts of interest.

5) In the interim of this restructuring,   insist  that the Texas Water development Board decide with their own experts cooperation with USGS and  the USFWS  what amount of pumping should be allowed at this time and how to use conservation,  reuse and non-aquifer storage to best attempt to balance supply and demand and how pumping sustainably at this time shall be managed, monitored and enforced.  Then the stakeholders can determine between themselves how to best regionally accomplish what the TWDB, USGS and the USFWS require while making a highest priority to obtain a balance between supply and demand without endangering our spring flows and water quality both surface and ground. ( Our current Edwards Aquifer stakeholder steering committee voted not to consider balancing water supply and demand and not to consider  water quality in spring fed streams as  within their scope.)

6) Insist that no public money be used to buy down or suspend all or any parts of groundwater permits and for them not to be considered property to be traded or sold among private interests or outside of spring system and watershed boundaries. (Which means canceling the scheduled Oct 1, 2013 initiation of VISPO  if the aquifer is below 635 at J17 index well.  The Edwards Aquifer HCP strategy VISPO would pay back permitees who volunteer not to use the part of their permit they can not market anyway,   while they continue to profit and drain the aquifer with the rest of their permit.  That will not result in reducing the aquifer drawdowns and will provide incentive for keeping the aquifer at dangerously low levels.

7) Insist upon the Texas Water development board development of aquifer contamination prevention and clean up strategies and water conservation and reuse technologies and non-Aquifer water storage and supply to balance water supply and demand without having to rely upon more than our state’s aquifers’ sustainable yields and for groundwater permit holders (if groundwater marketing) not be allowed to influence the research and development of these technologies.

8) Insist upon immediate accounting of all pumping by real time metering  and water uses and the application of standards of water conservation to the determination of permit amounts.

9) Insist upon strict protective management with respect to both wildlife and human health , well monitored, enforced recharge zone protection, water shed protection riparian zone protection, groundwater quality protection and clean up rules be immediately developed and implemented by the TWDB,  the TCEQ,  the Texas Department of Public health, US Geological Survey and State and federal  soil conservation services  including protections from conditions that favor harmful aquatic microbes including harmful sewage microbes and that favor types of  freshwater and marine algae and plankton that are beneficial so that the free ecosystem services that are saving our tax payers money will be sustained.

10) Insist that aquifer management fees be used for both management of pumping and groundwater quality and that the public money managed by aquifer boards not ever again be used for the directors to lobby and that a minimum amount of aquifer withdrawal fees be budgeted each year for groundwater and spring run water quality protection rule development, monitoring and enforcement of existing water quality rules.

11) Insist upon an immediate moratorium to the use of karst aquifers for Edwards Aquifer Authority Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) permitting rules which allow application of extreme pressures and injecting water or other substances into karst aquifers and a moratorium on  the use of Edwards Aquifer for industrial cooling because these physical alterations threaten to shift underground formations in ways that can result in cutting off and changing  for many generations current historical flow paths to springs and wells or in contamination of  both underground and surface water supplies. (Karst Aquifers are not considered by geotechnical standards to be qualified to hold and store injected waters in place or for such activities to warrant the permitting of extra groundwater allocation  for marketing to  landowners where this is allowed). (These Practices in the Edwards Aquifer region, although formerly prohibited,  are all authorized currently by the Edwards Aquifer Authority and by TCEQ.   If this is what caused the cessation of the largest of the Comal Springs, then it may not resume for many generations if ever).  Both low flows of colder older spring water and also Rock Quarry Industry use of the Edwards Aquifer for cooling disrupts the natural buffering against temperature changes in the springruns so that when temperature is not constant from top to bottom, density layers occur with warmer, lighter water on top capping off colder, heavier water on the bottom in spring runs and contribute to hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen).  Increases in temperature, water layering  and declines in dissolved oxygen were already occurring in Comal Springs’ major springruns at river flows below 150 cfs and contributing to conditions known to promote  harmful aquatic organism. Since 2009 these layers have occurred in the Comal River and in August of 2013, the main Comal spring ceased to flow indefinitely and dried up much of the spring run.  Now, in  late September 2013,  the Edwards Aquifer region currently experienced a major rain event caused by simultaneous hurricanes from the Pacific and the Atlantic but still five of the ceased major Comal Springs ( which have not completely ceased since 1956)  did not resume flow.

Sincerely, Cheryl Gilpin Former Edwards Aquifer Director District 8, M.Sc. Oceanography