EC Council asked to oppose LCRA/SAWS
Commissioner Miller tells council that project could negatively affect aquifer
By SHANNON CRABTREE scrabtree@leader-news.com

The Lower Colorado River Authority's plan to sell water to San Antonio will effect far more than farmers, Precinct 3 Commissioner Philip Miller said, as he asked the El Campo City Council to take action opposing the effort.

The San Antonio Water Service project or SAWS calls for surface water from Wharton County and other areas to be pumped to San Antonio for municipal use.

That plan, Miller said, is one Wharton County Commissioners voted to oppose in November 2006. Last week, that stance was reiterated as commissioners court revisited the issue.

The next night, Miller, a former El Campo city mayor, appeared before Council.

"There's some pretension that this does not effect us," Miller told Council. "Most of the wells will not be drilled in Wharton County, but they will effect our aquifer."

Miller asked City Council to consider a resolution opposing the effort.

The LCRA's plan is potentially problematic for the aquifer, he said. LCRA officials are proposing the construction of 70 water wells for irrigation purposes, a move which Miller says could cause a major drain on the resource.

"We don't have a big drain on our aquifer because we don't have many straws in it," Miller said.

The county has identified several areas of concern regarding the impact the project will have on the river and objects to the drilling of groundwater wells as a substitute for using surface water for irrigation.

The LCRA-SAWS Water Project proposes to reduce demand for water for irrigated agriculture and to produce more groundwater for use by farmers in Colorado, Wharton and Matagorda counties.

The project also proposes building a 4,200 acre holding basin on the Pierce Ranch to capture and store water from rainfall and from upstream sources. Those flows, estimated at 150,000 acre feet, would later be transported via pipeline to San Antonio. The LCRA is still studying the potential fallout of their plan.

That study period is scheduled to end no later than 2015.

City Council took no action on the request which was made during the public comments portion of their meeting Nov. 24.