The signed petition forms will be presented to the Directors of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District with an appeal to revise aquifer pumping to a rate that is sustainable into the future
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An open letter from CARD co-founder Jim McMeans
Hello Friends,The Citizens Alliance for Responsible Development (CARD - www.hayscard.org) is concerned with recent actions taken in Hays County and surrounding counties which will threaten the groundwater supply that most of us depend on for our homes, businesses, farms, and ranches. A decision has been made to allow increased pumping of the Trinity Aquifer that will allow an average 30' decline of the aquifer over time. This decision will cause wells to go dry throughout western Hays County and may affect the groundwater supply of the cities of Wimberley, Woodcreek, Dripping Springs, and others. The groundwater for over 6,000 wells serving area homes will be threatened. Area springs are likely to go dry.
Please carefully read the attached petition, print out page one, circulate it among your friends and associates, and gather as many signatures as possible. Mail the signed petition forms to CARD, PO Box 2905, Wimberley, TX 78676 by October 1st.
The signed petition forms will be presented to the Directors of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District with an appeal to revise aquifer pumping to a rate that is sustainable into the future.
Thanks,
Jim McMeans for the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Development
(Click on image to enlarge and print)
9 comments:
Finally, a group with some sanity. I have printed the petition and will be passing it around to my friends. LOVE THE RAIN! Wish we could depend on the rain to keep the Trinity fully recharged, but that ain't going to happen. There's more straws going into the ground and more pumping than the rain can keep up with. Ask the folks at the HTGCD. They can tell you the water table has been dropping steadily for years. The only way to slow the decline is to put strict limits on overall pumping. Hopefully reasonable people will find reasonable ways to save our natural water features into the future. I don't think the Hill Country would be quite the same without its beautiful streams and rivers. Do you?
The petition is full of falsehoods and scare tactics;
The district did not call for a “major Increase in aquifer pumping”. The district projected a Drawdown of 30 feet over the next 50 years, the same as the other Districts in the Groundwater Management Area 9. The district could set the drawdown at zero and it wouldn’t make any difference since everyone else’s would remain at 30 feet.
Their decision will not cause “extensive and widespread failure of local wells, probable elimination of spring flows at Jacob’s Well, Blue Hole, Cypress Creek and the Blanco River.” Jacob’s Well supply’s water to Cypress Creek, Blue Hole. The Blanco River contains surface water and actually provides water from runoff for recharge to the Trinity aquifer. That water eventually returns to the Blanco from Jacob’s Well via Cypress Creek. The author of this petition needs to get his facts straight to have any credibility with the more informed citizenry and office holders.
If the HTGCD followed the petition’s call; then what? Will they be able to stop development in the area? Can they control the pumping, number, and size of all wells drilled in the District? Are we going to have continued groundwater flowing from the springs in the area forever? If you think so, please explain the methods and mechanisms.
The sky is falling and a piece fell and hit me on the head! Hey it has Aqua Texas written on it. It says, we waste millions of gallons of aquifer water every year and there is nothing you can do about it!
What a bunch of idiots this CARD group is. Where did HTGCD or any other GCD call for an increase in aquifer pumping?
Fortunately, HTGCD has multiple districts and this just seems to be another Wimberley astroturfing group trying to impose their unscientific and illogical whims on the rest of the district residents.
You know at one time my property was underwater. I know this because of the fossilized clam shells all over the place. The water level has been dropping for eons on a macro scale - long before "people" were around. On a micro scale, the water levels fluctuate quite a bit. No amount of manipulation using HTGCD or any other governmental entity is going to affect either the macro or micro changes.
What CARD is attempting to do is akin to asking for a statute declaring PI = 3 or adopting a resolution that Hays County receive 60 inches of rain per year. You cannot dictate such things and just because something is written does not make it so.
CARD's propaganda is on par with other environmental terrorist groups out there. They are here to "save the community" and their objective is that you should give up individual rights for some vague notion of what's best for the "community". They can't even maintain a website halfway decently, they sure don't have the mental capacity to make the scientific conclusions they promote in this petition.
That splash you heard was Jim McMeans’ credibility dropping into the crapper. I believe Mr. McMeans is well meaning with his environmental and no-growth agenda and it is sad to see he has stooped so low as to misrepresent the facts as he has in this petition. If you have to exaggerate and make up stuff to get signatures it shows you cause is not worthy. The posters here have pretty much covered the transgressions so I’ll not belabor the point but to say my signature will not appear in the petition.
You waterholics need to get sober for a few years. Do we need any more building in Hays County? No; in fact we can even sell the houses that were built now.
This housing recession is the best thing to happen to HC since Jim Powers got booted out of the Hays CC.
Take a break all you growth nuts. If you can't make a living without further compromising the local environment and our water supply, move to the cities where you can watch things grow all you want.
McMeans may be spinning the data a bit but he cares more about HC than you waterholics can even fathom.
Get a life - or at least a breath.
If you think that we're in a housing recession, drive through Belterra and Highpointe subdivisions. They are still building homes there, and selling them. It might have slowed down, but it hasn't stopped. (And btw, their water comes from Lake Travis.)
I don't know what some of you people here are smoking. If you think a 30 foot decline in the aquifer won't dry up a great number of wells and every creek in the west side of the county, including even the Blanco, you're nuts, or stoned! Look at what the drought of 08 and 09 did. The Blanco River was down to limestone bedrock for months. Many wells faltered, which was great business for the water well drillers and water haulers. If you add several more feet of decline in the aquifer from extra pumping, the losses from the next drought will be much more severe.
First order of business should be to stop the big water wasters cold. Send the message loud and clear that waste will not be tolerated. Aqua Texas comes to mind. The groundwater district is nothing but a paper tiger and a pussy if it doesn't enforce its waste rules. Go ahead and let Aqua sue and put them on record that they are opposed to waste prevention. Their money would be better spent fixing their leaky system.
Second order of business is to get rid of directors on the groundwater board who are not 100% FOR protection and preservation of the aquifer now and in the future. If directors want to satisfy the whims and demands of developers they should campaign for seats on the local board of realtors. If directors don't give a hoot if our creeks and river dry up, they have not business sitting on a groundwater "conservation" board. Directors should not forget they represent the people WHO LIVE HERE TODAY who need their wells and the aquifer for their lives and livelihood.
Gee, Anonymous last, I have lived on the Blanco River south of town for almost twenty years and I can tell you without hesitation that the river's clarity and flow is getting worse and worse.
Now, you and your waterholic cohorts can always rationalize and pretend like the Blanco River failings that I see daily are caused by a "geological" drought event but the facts are I will sell our property once the housing markets rebound some so I can get out of the way of the water deterioration in Hays County that will directly affect my family.
I know what I see, and I am not smoking anything, not even cancer sticks or cancer turds (cigars).
And the other Anonymous who says there is no housing slump in Hays County because of some rare exceptions like Belterra etc. is the one smoking hemp laces with lies. Those properties are being dumped at fire sale prices and the developers are taking a profit bath.
Yes, the Austin area is still a decent housing area, but it is going to get worse as people start to leave Texas because of our failing public education system and crony corruption and hate in the Governor's mansion.
Hey you anonymous pooh-bah who said "Maybe springs and shallow wells will go the way of the Buffalo and the Indians", you made my point. What you forgot to add is that after springs and shallow wells disappear next will come the deeper wells then the river until the aquifer hits rock bottom.
It can all go quick or it can go slow. My guess is that with the Quick Draw McGraw members on the HTGCD board now, it's going to go pretty quick. Ignorance or foolishness is at work here but it sure ain't progress.
The HTGCD board has the authority to approve or disapprove new well and pumping permits. They have the authority to approve or disapprove requests for increases in pumping from the public water suppliers. The water suppliers are required to serve customers inside their service areas, but the HTGCD board is not required to give them all the water they want or need. It's a perfect Catch 22. It doesn't look like there is a Win Win in this situation we find ourselves in. We all lose when the groundwater is all gone, even the folks moving out to the hills from the city expecting to find nirvana.
You can have developer suck ups on the board or you can have tree huggers and conservationists. If I had my druthers I will vote for the tree huggers even though I sometimes vote conservative. But when it comes to water I will always vote for saving the water before anything else.
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