The Tapatio Springs Golf Resort's request for 412.21 acre-feet is 134,319,040.71 gallons.134 million gallons seems like a lot of water.
Does anyone know the current capacity of the Cow Creek, its current consumption rate, its recharge source, or its recharge rate?
How have the recent few years of relative drought impacted historical rates?
Sandy Fitzpatrick
Does anyone know the current capacity of the Cow Creek, its current consumption rate, its recharge source, or its recharge rate?
How have the recent few years of relative drought impacted historical rates?
Sandy Fitzpatrick
5 comments:
Nobody knows the maximum groundwater allocation limit! The Cow Creek Board has been studying,and debating this for years. Not knowing the maximum hasn't stopped them from permitting huge amounts of groundwater however. Of course, having no maximum makes their job much easier.
Unfortunately, it looks like the only way we will know the maximum is when hundreds of wells go dry.
With respect to the Tapatio request for 412 acre-feet of groundwater to irrigate the golf course, there are several issues that should be addressed. The latest data suggests that 4840 acre-feet is the maximum sustainable water available for Kendall Co.
Jay Parker and Stan Scott of Tapatio Springs testified under oath to Cow Creek GCD in Sept 2006 that 90-100 a-f annually was the amount need to water the course. The original request for permitting the subject 3 wells was for 144 a-f total. Now comes the 412 a-f request!!!
In 2005, KCUC produced 397 a-f and in 2006, the amount was 367 a-f to service over 800 residents and now the same owners want more than either of these just for golf.
The Cow Creek rules mandate that inactive wells are to be considered as new requests when permits are submitted. Now it appears that Tapatio wants CCGCD to disregard their own rules and grant this ludicrous request. Does this sound like Wall Street to you???
Sandy:
You should look at the CCGCD website and review our Management Plan, which is available for download. Details like the consumption rate (usage), recharge rate, and recharge source are discussed in the management plan. Of course, exact figures for usage and recharge are difficult to determine, so there’s quite a bit of debate over how much use is sustainable. Our Management Plan uses a figure of 4,840 acre feet per year available for permitting. A substantial portion of that allocation has already been appropriated to other users. Water availability is certainly effected by rainfall, and CCGCD has several years of well-monitoring data demonstrating the impact of below-average rainfall over the past couple of years. That data is also available on the CCGCD website, www.ccgcd.org.
William Haas
Director, Precinct 3
Please take a look at the BT web home page. There are a few ways to learn more about water. There is a front page article "Water Matters" with links. Also, you can push the LEARN button at left side and look at Issues School for 'Water' for more info. Keep on surfing! Hill Country Alliance has a great deal of information too. Google 'em!
On 10/14/08 The Cow Creek Board approved 242 acre-feet of groundwater for continuous watering of a golf course during one of the most severe droughts we have had in many years; while at the same time disallowing a fraction of that amount for individuals and small businesses. This decision smacks of favoritism to the wealthy few in the county at the expense of the many.
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