Public Input Sought on Updated Regional Water Plan
Posted on: Monday, 18 July 2005, 12:00 CDT
Jul. 18--The public will get its say on a proposed five-year update of the regional water plan at four hearings across South and Central Texas this week.
The plan, revised over the past three years by 21 representatives from a 201/2-county area, projects the demand and supply for the region over the next 50 years and how a projected shortfall will be met.
Proposed projects to meet the shortfall are essentially the same as those in a 2001 plan, but some are options that may not be pursued.
For example, the plan includes a nearly $1 billion proposal to pipe billions of gallons of water from the Guadalupe River at the Gulf Coast, but the head of the San Antonio Water System, the proposal's main sponsor, recently announced intentions to pull out of the project.
Still, regional planners may elect to leave all the options that have been studied in the plan.
"This is just a preliminary plan," said Evelyn Bonavita, chairwoman of what's known as the South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group. "That's why the public hearings are so important, because we can and probably will make changes before we turn in the final plan after hearing what the public has to say."
Most of the changes to the plan so far are downward revisions of population projections and estimated water needs.
The plan projects that by 2060 the region's population will more than double to 4.3 million people, with 2.5 million of them living in Bexar County. It projects that 1,272,901 acre-feet of water will be needed to meet the needs of all those people during a severe drought. That puts the region 416,855 acre-feet short.
An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, or enough to meet the annual needs of about three average families of four in San Antonio.
Among the many proposals to meet the shortfall are increased conservation, transfers from farm use to city use of Edwards Aquifer pumping rights, increased use of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, desalination of brackish groundwater and seawater, Edwards Aquifer recharge projects, increased use of recycled water and the piping to Bexar County of water from the Colorado River near the coast.
The hearings, all scheduled to start at 7 p.m., are to be held at the Victoria Community Center in Victoria today, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority offices in Seguin on Tuesday, the Adult Activity Center of Uvalde on Wednesday and the Marriott Plaza hotel at 555 S. Alamo St. in San Antonio on Thursday.
The plan, which is contained in two 3-inch-thick volumes, can be found on the Internet at www.watershedexperience.com in the document library section.
"If people can't make the hearings, they can send in written comments until Sept. 20," Bonavita said. "It's important that people tell us what they think, especially if they have concerns about it."
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Source: San Antonio Express-News
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