Join GEAA at City Hall in San Antonio on May 29th

On March 11, 2013, the Board of Trustees of the San Antonio Water System approved water and wastewater service to Crescent Hills, a development located entirely in Comal County on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.

This 1,545 acre tract, bordered by the newly acquired Cibolo Canyon Preserve and the Bracken Bat Preserve, is too high density for the Recharge Zone. Planned to build out at four houses per acre, Crescent Hills does not comply with San Antonio’s impervious cover restrictions. It is estimated that San Antonio Water System (SAWS) will need to secure an additional 976 acre feet per year to provide water service to this new development.

Given that SAWS is exploring options to pipe water in from other areas to meet projected demands, it is time that we – as a community – engage in this issue. How big do we want SAWS to grow? Do we want to provide service outside of Bexar County? Do we, as rate payers, want to fund big dollar supply projects in order to fund sprawl over the Edwards Recharge Zone? We are very grateful to SAWS Trustee, Samuel E. Luna, for bring these issues up at the March 11th SAWS Board meeting, and for following up with a letter to the SAWS Board. We agree that the vote to approve service to Crescent Hills should be rescinded.

Also very troubling is the fact that SAWS plans to subsidize 50% of the cost of installing oversized sewer lines to Crescent Hills. Not only will this promote additional growth over the Edwards Recharge Zone, but these lines will be installed within the creek bed of Elm Hole Watering Creek and its tributaries.

SAWS routinely installs sewage lines right up the middle of intermittent streams that recharge the Edwards Aquifer, as they plan to do to provide service to Crescent Hills. Given that 75% to 80% of recharge occurs within streams and rivers that traverse the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, the event of a spill of could have serious consequences to nearby wells. The Edwards Aquifer staff recently reported extremely elevated levels of fecal coli form bacteria in water wells as far as four miles away from the site of a spill that occurred on the Recharge Zone on October 15, 2012.

During the period between January 2008 and May 2012 eighty-three spills totaling 809,000 gallons (or 2.5 acre feet) of raw sewage occurred on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. Because the Edwards Aquifer does not filter surface runoff on the Recharge Zone, this is cause for concern.

Recognizing that sewage infrastructure poses a threat to the continued quality of the Edwards Aquifer, TCEQ requires camera testing of wastewater lines that traverse the Recharge Zone at five year intervals. The cost of compliance with these requirements is estimated at $37,000/mile. Currently, this cost is borne by all SAWS rate payers. Additionally, the extension of waste water service into the Edwards Recharge and Contributing zones serves to encourage additional high density development in this extremely sensitive area. Until such time as a more equitable method of financing inspections and other measures needed to protect the Recharge Zone are implemented, we oppose approval of additional wastewater infrastructure within the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone.

GEAA invites you to engage the Mayor and City Council of San Antonio in a dialogue about development on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, and whether or not we should expand SAWS service into Comal County. Citizens of Comal County are welcome; development in this area could affect your wells and springs.

On Wednesday, May 29th at 6:pm City Council has a B Session that includes “Citizens to be Heard”. This is an opportunity for individual citizens to address City Council. The meeting takes place at the Municipal Plaza Building City Council Chambers at 114 West Commerce Street in San Antonio and starts at 6 p.m.

You are invited to join us at Citizens to Be Heard to speak or just bear witness. If you are coming, please notify the Mayor’s Office and your Council representative and ask that they stay to hear the people.

If you are interested in speaking, instructions for sign-up are:

• Citizens must register between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on the day of the meeting in order to speak. The link to register online becomes available on Wednesday at 8 a.m. at this website: http://www.sanantonio.gov/yourcity/meetingappear.aspx
• Alternatively, between 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., citizens can register in person at the Registration Desk on the afternoon of the meeting
• Citizens are given 3 minutes each to speak about their issue, and groups of 3 or more are given a total of 9 minutes. You can yield your time if you like to someone who may have a longer presentation.

We encourage all SAWS ratepayers and all people who don’t want to subsidize sprawl on the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone to join us on May 22nd in urging the San Antonio City Council to rescind SAWS service to Crescent Hills.

If you cannot attend – Please contact the Mayor and your City Council Representative to voice your concerns.