Needmore Ranch Requests 886 Acre-Fee Per Year

 
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Needmore Ranch, a pristine, 5,000-acre ranch along the Blanco River outside Wimberley, Texas, has applied for a massive groundwater production permit with the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD).  TESPA is fighting this proposed permit.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature passed a bill which extended BSEACD's jurisdiction over unregulated areas of the Trinity Aquifer in Hays County, including the eastern half of Needmore Ranch. Needmore applied for a permit in September 2015, and in November 2016, BSEACD issued a proposed permit to Needmore Ranch. (see background below)

The amount of groundwater that Needmore has requested — more 289,000,000 gallons of groundwater a year — is excessive and will significantly drawdown the Trinity Aquifer. Aquifer tests revealed that this amount of pumping resulted in 14 feet of drawdown in a monitoring well almost two miles from the well on Needmore Ranch.

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BSEACD's own modeling predicts that within seven years, pumping from the well on Needmore Ranch will cause 140 feet of drawdown.

 

Background on Needmore and HB3405

In 2011, Greg LaMantia, a wealthy beer distributer, purchased Needmore Ranch from John O'Quinn, a Houston trial lawyer who infuriated locals when, after purchasing the ranch, he closed off public access to Fern Bank Springs, a favorite local swimming hole.

In 2013, locals would once again be outraged at the ranch's owner — this time new owner Greg LaManita — when he successfully lobbied State Representative Jason Isaac and Senator Donna Campbell to pass legislation, despite widespread local opposition, to create a municipal utility district (MUD) on the ranch. For more details, read this Texas Observer article (5/3/13).

To appease the community's concerns that development of the ranch would deplete groundwater in the Trinity Aquifer, Representative Isaac and Senator Campbell included a provision in the Needmore Ranch MUD enabling legislation prohibiting Needmore from pumping Trinity groundwater for use in a residential subdivision on the ranch.*

Adding horror to scare, in early 2015 the Wimberley and Driftwood communities learned that Electro Purification (EP), a private groundwater developer, planned to pump almost 5 million gallons of groundwater a day from an unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer (~5,600 acre-fee/year).

Because the area was not regulated by a groundwater conservation district, there were no laws in place to protect the property rights of nearby landowners whose wells were threatened by the massive pumping project. The Rule of Capture, an archaic law adopted by the Texas Supreme Court in 1904, prohibited neighboring landowners from suing to protect their groundwater from being drained. 

In response to groundwater threats from Needmore and EP, TESPA formed in 2015 as a 501c3 organization and immediately filed a lawsuit against EP and the landowners who leased their groundwater rights to EP arguing that the court should overturn the rule of capture.

Locals galvanized and urged Representative Isaac and Senator Campbell to pass legation during the 84th session that would extend jurisdiction of the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD) over the unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer in Hays County.

House Bill 3405 was filed and had a controversial life during the 84th session —dying on the floor of the house as a result of a point of order — only to be resurrected at the last minute by an exceedingly rare decision by the House Parliamentarian to reverse the point of order. Read Texas Tribune story for more details.

Prior to HB 3405 becoming law, the eastern half of Needmore Ranch was in the unregulated portion of the Trinity Aquifer. The western half of Needmore Ranch, however, has always been within the jurisdiction of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD). After passage of House Bill 3405, BSEACD and HTGCD now bisect Needmore Ranch, with the eastern half within BSEACD's territory and the western half within HTGCD. For reference, see the map, below.

* A little-known fact is that when House Bill 3405 passed, a bill authored by Senator Campbell also passed. Campbell’s Senate Bill 2075 repealed the language in the Needmore MUD’s enabling legislation that prohibited it from pumping groundwater from the Trinity Aquifer for a residential subdivision. Thus, that prohibition for the MUD is no longer in place.