Western Canyon Pipeline

Canyon Lake water on its way

Posted: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:00 am

By DAVE PASLEY — Star Writer

Sometime in April, thousands of Kendall County residents will be drinking water from Canyon Lake. Most, if not all, are already paying sharply higher rates as a result.

Boerne and Fair Oaks Ranch water customers combined will pay nearly $1.4 million each year for roughly 423 million gallons of treated lake water, plus the option to buy more in the future.

Officials with the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), owners and bulk distributors of the Canyon Lake water, refuse to say when they expect the water to arrive. However, local officials have speculated the lake water could flow from some Kendall County water taps as early as this week.

When it does arrive, the impact of the new water source will be substantial. Canyon Lake will supply roughly one-third of Boerne's wintertime drinking water and it will meet nearly 100 percent of Fair Oaks Ranch's winter water demand. In turn, pumping from wells that currently provide about half of Boerne's water and all of Fair Oaks Ranch's water will be reduced.

“It won't get here a minute too soon,” Fair Oaks Ranch Alderman Dan Kasprowicz says of the initiative, officially known as the Western Canyon Regional Water Supply Project.

At the last city council meeting, Public Works Administrator John B. Moring, Jr. reported the level in the city's monitoring well had dropped to the lowest level he had seen in his five years with the city.

Kasprowicz said there has been a long-standing concern that extremely dry conditions, exactly like those Kendall County is now experiencing, could cause the municipality's wells to go dry. Spurred by this fear, Fair Oaks Ranch officials pursued the lake water deal with the GBRA nearly a decade ago.

Prior to the Western Canyon Project, in December 1996, Boerne contracted with the GBRA to take water directly from the Guadalupe River, treat it and pump it seven miles to the city. That plan was set aside in favor of the multi-party Western Canyon Project.

The water supply concerns of both cities have been exacerbated by the area's rapid growth which has, in turn, caused increased pumping of groundwater. Coincidentally, but prophetically, the U.S. Census Bureau announced this month that Kendall County was the 55th fastest-growing county in the United States last year.

Cordillera Ranch and Kendall County Utility Company/Tapatio Springs Service Company are the other partners in the project from Kendall County (portions of Fair Oaks Ranch are in three counties: Kendall, Comal and Bexar). In Bexar County, the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) is a partner. Rounding out the consortium are the Johnson Ranch development and the city of Bulverde in Comal County.

While Kendall County residents probably won't be drinking Canyon Lake water for at least a few more days, they've been paying for it for several months. For example, water rates in Fair Oaks Ranch have jumped nearly 60 percent.

Kasprowicz says the city of Fair Oaks Ranch will pay about $67,500 per month for about 21.7 million gallons of Canyon Lake water.

The city of Boerne will buy roughly 13.6 million gallons of lake water from the GBRA each month at a cost of $48,400, according to Finance Director Sandra Mattick.

Mattick says payments for the Canyon Lake water, which have already begun, represent roughly 24 percent of the water utility's operating expenses for 2005-06.

She said the city began charging its customers for the Canyon Lake water last fall.

“In October 2005, the city of Boerne restructured and increased the rates charged to our customers,” Mattick wrote in an e-mail response to questions posed by the Star. “The rate increase resulted in an average increase of 30 percent, with commercial customers seeing a higher increase than residential customers and large users seeing a larger increase than the smaller user.”

Getting the Comal County lake water into the faucets of Kendall County homes is the culmination of decades of bitter political struggle and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars. The price tag for the Western Canyon pipeline and treatment plant alone is at least $82 million. Canyon dam, built by U.S. Corps of Engineers and completed in 1964, cost more than $20 million.

Water will be extracted from the lake by subsurface pipes extending in to a deep cove northeast of Startzville. The raw lake water will then be pumped through an underground pipe nearly four miles west, past Startzville, to a hilltop reservoir built by the GBRA. Water from the reservoir will then be treated in a new state-of-the-art plant and sent 25 miles west to Kendall County in a pipeline.

From the treatment plant the pipeline drops down to State Highway 46 and follows the highway to a point just east of U.S. 281 where it drops southward to make its first delivery to Bulverde and Johnson Ranch. At that point the pipeline splits, with one segment continuing south and terminating in northern Bexar County, where SAWS will eventually take delivery.

The other segment of the pipeline heads 11 miles due west in a Lower Colorado River Authority power line easement until it reaches Ralph Fair Road (FM 3351). Another split occurs at that point, with a segment of the pipeline extending north to serve Cordillera Ranch on SH 46 and the other segment going south to a booster pump station on Ammann Road, west of Ralph Fair Road.

From the booster station, the pipeline continues westward in to Fair Oaks Ranch where the city has constructed a new facility on its western edge to receive its 21-million gallon daily allotment. There the pipeline makes a final split, heading west to Boerne and south to a new SAWS storage tank near

Fair Oaks Boulevard and Interstate Highway 10.

Given the long, contentious, expensive, and sometimes bitter struggle over the sale of water from Canyon Lake, its actual arrival in Kendall County is expected to be anti-climactic - perhaps deliberately so.

At a Fair Oaks Ranch City Council meeting earlier this month, where the pending delivery of the lake water was being discussed, Alderwoman Cheryl Landman asked fellow Alderman Kasprowicz how she would know when she was drinking the lake water.

“If everything goes according to plan,” Kasprowicz replied, “you won't.”

While local officials like Landman and Kasprowicz speak candidly, often enthusiastically, in open meetings about the pending delivery of the lake water, GBRA officials are more circumspect.

In October 2003, the GBRA issued a press release saying the water would arrive in Kendall County by the spring of 2005. In June 2004, a GBRA press release said delivery of the water had been delayed until October 2005 because of a lawsuit filed by the Friends of Canyon Lake.

Now, with the delivery of the water measured in weeks, perhaps days, the GBRA is refusing to say when the water will arrive.

GBRA spokesperson Judy Gardner was first contacted by the Star in late February seeking detailed information for this article, including the projected date of delivery of the lake water to Kendall County taps. At Gardner's request, the Star submitted more than a dozen questions, in writing, to the GBRA on March 16. None of those questions had been answered by the Star's Monday press deadline, although an interview with GBRA General Manager W. E. & “Bill” West, Jr. is scheduled later this week.

The Star made the decision to publish this article about the Western Canyon Project today, without meaningful input from the GBRA; because it appeared further delay could result in the water arriving in local taps before the article was published.

The Star plans to publish additional articles about the Canyon Lake water project in the next few weeks.

Lake water flows, more than 1600 acre-feet coming to Kendall

Posted: Tuesday, April 4, 2006 12:00 am

By DAVE PASLEY

Editor's Note: This is the second in an on-going series of articles about an $82 million project to bring treated water from Canyon Lake to Kendall County.

To understand the deal that Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, Kendall County/Tapatio Springs utilities and four out-of-county entities have to buy water from Canyon Lake it is helpful to understand the lake itself.

Because of periodic catastrophic flooding, serious consideration of building a dam on the Guadalupe River upstream from New Braunfels began in the 1920s. In 1935, the State Legislature created the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority (GBRA) to "develop, conserve and protect the waters of the Guadalupe River basin.” In 1954, Federal funding for a dam was approved and the GBRA partnered with the U.S. Corps of Engineers to create Canyon Lake. The formal dedication ceremony for Canyon Dam took place on April 20, 1966. The cost was $20.2 million.

The lake can hold as much as 732,600 acre-feet of water in a flood. Its normal conservation pool is 386,200 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the equivalent of 325,851 gallons.

However, the firm annual yield from the lake is only 90,000 acre-feet. Firm yield is calculated using a formula set out in state law and is based on historic flow rates in the Guadalupe River above the dam.

There are several reasons for the large difference between the lake's conservation pool and its firm yield, including drought, evaporation, releases to honor environmental flows and senior run-of-the-river water rights.

“Base flow and evaporation pretty much wash,” GBRA General Manager William E. (Bill) West Jr. says in describing Canyon Lake. “It's the flood flows that fill (Canyon Lake) and refill it. A lot of people think it's the base flow that fills it, but it's not.”

“Our permit (to sell the lake's water) that we have from the state is predicated on a calculation that identifies that you can pump 90,000 acre-feet of water out of the lake through the repeat of the drought of record and the theory is that the last day, as the lake runs dry, it rains. That's the concept.” West says. “The drought of record was in the 50s, so we've got a permit that reflects that firm yield and by statute we're restricted from selling more than that firm yield. Right now, in round numbers, we're a little bit shy of 70,000 acre-feet committed. Of that 70,000 (acre-feet) contract customers are actually using only 35,000 to 36,000 (acre-feet).”

To summarize West's description, the GBRA is allowed to sell 23 percent of the water the lake conservation pool normally holds and the GBRA has sold 77 percent of that allowance. However, the buyers of the water extract only about half of what they've bought. Thus, the water buyers are actually taking out of the lake today represents just 41 percent of what the GBRA is permitted to sell and less than 10 percent of the water the lake normally holds in its conservation pool.

The City of Boerne's contract to buy Canyon Lake water from the GBRA is an example of this dynamic. Boerne will begin taking delivery this month of about 446,000 gallons of treated lake water every day, the equivalent of 500 acre-feet of water per year. The annual cost to have that water drawn from the lake, treated and pumped 30 miles to the city's intake point on Cascade Caverns Road is about $456,000. However, as part of its contract with the GBRA, Boerne is paying another $125,000 or so for the right to treat and pump an additional 1,361 acre-feet per year in the future, when and if it's needed.

Thus, even though Boerne has purchased the rights to 1,861 acre-feet of lake water it will withdraw only 500 acre-feet, 27 percent of its allotment, over the next 12 months. The remainder of Boerne's “committed water” stays in the lake and is available for recreational purposes.

Not surprisingly, the Western Canyon Project has been bitterly opposed by Comal County residents around the lake, and by New Braunfels area residents along the Guadalupe River below the dam, who view the reservoir more as an amenity rather than a water supply and flood control device.

Lake area residents are concerned the increased use of lake water for drinking water will reduce the amount available for recreational uses in the lake itself, as well as in the river below the dam.

A group known as Friends of Canyon Lake (FOCL) went to court to stop the Western Canyon Project, eventually losing when the Texas Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in early 2003.

A statement on the FOCL Web site says: “We truly believe the “firm yield” of Canyon Lake is insufficient to support such a large diversion during dry spells without irreparably damaging both the ecology of the lake and our fragile, recreation-based economy. We believe the civil rights of 34,000 residents have been violated. We need objective studies to confirm our concerns. Having exhausted our request for remedies in the State Court System, we have moved to the Federal arena.”

More ominously, a construction site trailer of a GBRA contractor working on the Western Canyon Project water treatment plant was intentionally set on fire last year. The San Marcos Daily Record reported that, two days after the fire, a note was delivered to the GBRA office in Seguin claiming responsibility for the fire. The note was purportedly sent by someone affiliated with FOCL, according to the Daily Record.

FOCL officials denied any responsibility and condemned the setting of the fire. Comal County Fire Marshal Lin Manford told the Star recently that the case remains open and under investigation.

He said there were no leads, despite reward offers and an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The tension regarding the use of the Canyon Lake water is likely to increase as water purveyors like Boerne grow and choose to extract more of their committed, but unused, lake water.

West sees a day in the not too distant future when the lake's entire firm yield is committed.

“How long will that (20,000 acre-foot) remainder (of uncommitted firm yield) last? Who knows. We think it's somewhere in the 12 -to-15-year time frame. That's a function of a lot of things, overall national economics, the local economics,” says West, “The cheap, easy (water) supplies have been developed. So we're really scratching our head…where is the next source of water going to come from.”

Project to cost over $172 million

Posted: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:00 am

By DAVE PASLEY

Editor's Note: This is the third in an on-going series of articles about the multi-million dollar project to bring treated water from Canyon Lake to Kendall County.

Officials with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority (GBRA) estimate the infrastructure associated with the Western Canyon Water Supply Project will cost approximately $82 million. Finance charges will add roughly another $93 million. When interest earned on the borrowed money is factored in, the total cost for the project is estimated at $172,556,729.

Project construction is essentially complete and water from Canyon Lake is expected to flow into local taps any day.

The project infrastructure includes a state-of-the-art water treatment plant, water intake facilities at Canyon Lake and 40-some miles of pipelines, easements, pumps, booster stations and related operating equipment needed to bring Canyon Lake water to the taps of utility customers in Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, Kendall County/Tapatio Springs utilities and four out-of-county entities.

The funds to pay for these improvements came from $79,450,000 in revenue bonds sold by the GBRA on April 15, 2003. Project construction was delayed by lawsuits filed by Canyon Lake area residents, but, in the interim period prior to start of construction, the bond proceeds earned about $2.5 million in interest, bringing the total funds available to pay for construction costs to approximately $82 million.

Alvin Schuerg, GBRA executive manager of finance and administration, told the Star that the cost of financing the revenue bonds, which are scheduled to be paid off in 2033, will be $77,419,754. Thus the combined principal and interest payments total $156,869,754.

Schuerg says an additional 10 percent over and above the principal and interest payments must be collected to protect bondholders and ensure steady debt payments over the life of the bonds. That requirement adds $15.68 million to the annual borrowing costs that are being passed on to the project stakeholders.

Thus, the total amount needed for debt financing over the life of the bonds is $172,556,729.

To pay off that debt, the GBRA is charging the buyers of its water $1.70 for each 1000 gallons of water sold. The operation and maintenance costs of the system will initially cost 77 cents per 1000 gallons. There is also a charge for the raw water extracted from Canyon Lake of 30 cents per 1000 gallons. These costs are estimates and will fluctuate some over the years, but initially the GBRA will charge a total fee of $2.80 per 1000 gallons of treated water.

Schuerg says there is flexibility in the ultimate use of the $15.68 million, assuming that all of the project partners perform according to the project contract. Those options range from funding for major repairs that might be needed in the future to a reduction in the annual charges in the project's later years.

Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, and Kendall County/Tapatio Springs will initially buy only 15 percent of the water generated by the project, thus these entities will pay only 15 percent of the total costs listed.

The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) will buy roughly 80 percent of the water when production begins, thus SAWS will pay 80 percent of the total project cost. The significant and unique role that SAWS plays in the Western Canyon Project will be explored in more detail in a future article.

The cost for the treated water produced by the GBRA appears to compare favorably with water treatment projects of similar size in Texas. A Texas Municipal League Survey indicates that utilities serving a similar number of customers with treated surface water charge rates ranging from $2.60 to $3.34 per 1,000 gallons compared to the $2.80 per 1,000 gallons the GBRA plans to initially charge.

The costs to store, treat and pump surface water is, however, much more expensive than pumping from wells. As a result, water rates in Fair Oaks Ranch, which has been totally dependent on ground water, have increased nearly 60 percent to pay for the new water from the Western Canyon Project. Boerne, which had produced about one-half of its winter-time water from wells but plans to reduce that take to one-third when the Canyon

New water impacts county development

Posted: Friday, April 14, 2006 12:00 am

By DAVE PASLEY

Editor's note: This is the fourth in an on-going series of articles about a multi-million dollar project to bring treated drinking water from Canyon Lake to Kendall County.

Updates from Dave Pasley in Feb. 2011: The Legacy development that is mentioned in this article never came to pass. However, another large development on the eastern edge of Boerne (Esperanza) did go forward and water for that development was purchased from the GBRA. Also, through a regional planning process and a model developed by the Texas Water Development Board, the amount of additional groundwater that is now estimated to be available for future pumping in Kendall County is 8,335 acre-feet, which is nearly double the estimate in 2006.

The flare-up at Monday's Commissioners Court meeting over lot sizes in the proposed Legacy development on SH 46 exposed the impact the new source of water from Canyon Lake is likely to have on development in Kendall County. This may be the first skirmish in what could become an all out-war.

Some key numbers define the water issue in Kendall County.

The Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District says that the sustainable annual withdrawal from wells in Kendall County (excepting the portion of the county in the City of Fair Oaks Ranch) is 4,840 acre-feet per year. The District is in the process of establishing a regulatory system that will cap groundwater withdrawals at 4,840 acre-feet.

Cow Creek Operations Manager Micah Voulgaris says it would not surprise him if most, perhaps all, of the 4,840 acre-feet of available groundwater ends up being allocated to existing well owners. In other words, there could end up being virtually no groundwater available to allocate to new development.

The Guadalupe Blanco River Authority's (GBRA) Western Canyon Water Supply Project can ultimately produce 16,200 acre-feet per year, nearly four times what Cow Creek says can be pumped from the ground in Kendall County. Last week the GBRA started the plant up at 66 percent of its ultimate capacity, 11,200 acre-feet per year.

Much of that GBRA water is, ultimately, available to come to Kendall County. The GBRA controls outright 1,389 acre-feet of water currently flowing in the pipeline. The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) is buying that water on a temporary basis, but the GBRA can sell the rights to that water to another entity at any time. In fact, they are selling 800 acre-feet of this water to Legacy. (A future article in this series will explain in more detail the unique and critical role SAWS plays in the Western Canyon Project.)

To summarize: GBRA can deliver to Kendall County three to four times as much water as the Cow Creek District says is available in the ground. Virtually all of GBRA's water is up for grabs to new users. Virtually all of the groundwater in the county is locked up by existing users.

Given this dynamic it is not surprising that a lot of folks are lining up at GBRA's door hoping to buy rights to its water, including the City of Boerne.

Boerne City Manager Ron Bowman says the city could take action within 30 to 45 days to buy the rights to as much as 1,000 acre-feet of Canyon Lake water in addition to the rights to 1,861 acre-feet the city already owns.

One of the original partners in the Western Canyon Project, along with Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch and Kendall County/Tapatio Springs utilities, was the Cordillera Ranch development.

Cordillera provides a casebook example of the impact that GBRA water is likely to have on development-demand for higher density.

David Hill, an Austin developer, became involved in the development of the 8,600-acre Cordillera Ranch in the mid-1990s. He conducted hydrology studies to determine the approximate spacing of water wells the ranch could support and, based primarily on those studies, set out to carve the ranch in to five-acre residential lots with a water well on each lot.

In the mid-1990s, Hill heard about the GBRA's plans to build the Western Canyon Project and by 1999 he had committed to be a partner in the project.

According to Chris Hill, David Hill's son, the certainty of the GBRA water set in motion a series of moves by the Hills that will result in the development of as many as 2,500 lots at Cordillera Ranch, some as small as one acre, instead of the approximately 1,700 lots of at least five acres that were originally planned.

First of all, unlike ground water which requires no distribution system, utilization of the Canyon Lake water requires a distribution system, with pipes, storage tanks, pumps and meters.

While that adds cost, it also adds flexibility and options for the developer. Smaller lots become more feasible. Smaller lots, in turn, make the development of a sewer treatment facility more feasible. With public water and sewer systems in place, instead of wells and septic tanks, lots can be much smaller. Smaller lots, of course, mean more lots to sell, thus increasing the developer's yield from the same acreage.

A byproduct of sewer treatment plants is treated effluent, and a classic use for treated effluent is irrigation. This dynamic led the Hills to their decision to develop a golf course at Cordillera Ranch. Golf course developments, in turn, tend to increase the value of adjacent lots which, in turn, increases the likelihood of smaller lots.

As part of its contract with the GBRA, Cordillera turned over to the GBRA the development's water and sewer system. Thus, today, the GBRA owns and operates both systems at Cordillera Ranch.

Because the water system was put in place before the GBRA water arrived, the water utility has been operating on ground water from wells on the property. Those wells will remain part of the system, with groundwater supplementing GBRA water from Canyon Lake.

Legacy, the proposed development that caused such a stir at the Commissioners Court Monday is located next door to Cordillera Ranch. Legacy is seeking a deal from the GBRA very similar to the one the GBRA struck with Cordillera Ranch. Final approval of a contract with Legacy is expected to occur at the next meeting of the GBRA Board of Directors, according to GBRA General Manager Bill West.

A key difference between the two developments is that Cordillera Ranch is grandfathered from the County's rules regarding minimum lot size because the development began prior to the establishment of the current minimums.

One of the stipulations West says the GBRA will make is that Legacy, or any other buyer of GBRA water, comply with all state and local development regulations.

Both the County and the Cow Creek District are relying on a minimum lot size as the primary means to limit the use of groundwater. But that is a regulatory dynamic that appears to collide head-on with the higher-density dynamic triggered by GBRA water.

Kendall County benefits at SAWS' expense

Posted: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:00 am

By DAVE PASLEY

Editor's note: This is the fifth in an on-going series of articles about a multi-million dollar project to bring treated drinking water from Canyon Lake to Kendall County.

Anyone favoring growth and development in Kendall County ought to send the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) a nice bouquet of flowers.

The Star's analysis of the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority's (GBRA) Western Canyon Regional Water Supply Project suggests that SAWS could end up paying more than $100 million of the $172.5 million cost to pay off the bonds sold to build the project.

But when those bonds are paid off in 2033, SAWS' guaranteed take from the project will be only 35 percent. Furthermore, when the current operating contract expires three years later, in 2036, SAWS will lose all of its rights to buy water from the Western Canyon Project that could not have been built without SAWS' help.

After 2036, if SAWS wants water from the pipeline it helped to build, it will have to pay the GBRA $4,000 per acre-foot ($15.8 million), adjusted for inflation, to get back in the project.

The corollary is the Kendall County partners in the Western Canyon Project - Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Cordillera Ranch and Kendall County/Tapatio Springs utilities - are benefiting at SAWS' expense.

The Star's analysis also suggests the Kendall County partners in the project will pay about half of what SAWS will pay toward the project's construction and financing costs but will end up with the rights to buy 26 percent more water than SAWS, once the project is paid for. Plus, the non-SAWS utilities will not have to pay a re-entry fee, which for SAWS adds up to $15.8 million.

Furthermore, if SAWS passes on the option to buy back in to the project after 2036, then the 3,950 acre-feet of water SAWS was buying will be available for sale in Kendall and Comal County.

Implicit in the Star's projection is an assumption that the non-SAWS participants in the project, collectively, would gradually purchase more treated water each year. The Star developed a simple, straight-line projection of SAWS financial participation in the project that assumed a consistent annual decline in water purchased by SAWS, from 8,900 acre-feet in 2006 to 3,950 acre-feet in 2033 when the bonds will be paid off.

If the non-SAWS partners in the project choose to increase their take of treated water more rapidly in the early years of the project, then SAWS would pay less of the cost of financing the project, and vice-versa.

The addition of new participants in the pipeline, such as the Legacy development on SH 46, would also result in SAWS buying less water and, thus, paying less of the total project cost.

But regardless of how much SAWS ends up paying, the guarantee that SAWS would buy the water that other project partners could not buy was crucial to selling the revenue bonds that financed the project's construction.

SAWS role in bankrolling the Western Canyon Project has not gone unnoticed, or unappreciated.

“(The Western Canyon Project) would not have happened without SAWS participation,” Fair Oaks Ranch Alderman Dan Kasprowicz flatly acknowledges.

“SAWS is a valued customer in this project,” wrote GBRA spokesperson Judy Gardner, “because Bexar County participation ensures the use of the total plant water production in the early years of the project. It also provides economy of scale which results in a more affordable water cost to all participants.”

From an operational perspective, GBRA General Manager William E. (Bill) West, Jr. describes SAWS as the system's “shock-absorber” because the massive SAWS distribution system allows it to receive and use any amount of water, up to the plant's capacity, at any time of the year.

SAWS Director of Water Resources Calvin Finch says one reason SAWS is participating in the Western Canyon Project is because it needs water from a source other than the Edwards Aquifer to fill gaps in its long-range water resource plan.

“We need the water right now. It's very valuable to us,” Finch says, noting that the amount SAWS is allowed to pump from the Edwards Aquifer is declining while the number of SAWS water customers is growing, “(Water from the Western Canyon Project) is water available now, and it is water that we need now.”

Finch also says the SAWS Board of Directors have a policy to partner with smaller utilities to help them develop alternative water resources.

“Our board has made it clear we are to assist the other communities in the area, within reason, to meet their water needs. We have the ability to back up big projects and we are to consider doing that when asked,” Finch says.

GBRA plans to treat and pump no less than 11,200 acre-feet of lake water per year. Because the same amount of water comes down the pipeline every day, the plant produces far more water than Kendall County can use on a regular basis.

SAWS, which pumps roughly 200,000 acre-feet of water per year from the Edwards Aquifer, has agreed to buy whatever amount the other participants in the project do not want or can not receive, because of operational problems, on any given day.

The water plant is opening at about 66 percent of capacity. GBRA officials say the plant can be expanded to a maximum annual production of 16,500 acre-feet, more than three times the amount of groundwater local officials estimate can be safely pumped from the Trinity/Cow Creek Aquifer in Kendall County.

Thus, to the extent that water is a critical component underpinning growth and development, it appears that SAWS ratepayers are subsidizing growth and development in Kendall County.

GBRA, SAWS put differences aside for the sake of necessity

Posted: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 12:00 am

Editor's note: This is the sixth in an on-going series of articles about a multi-million dollar project to bring treated drinking water from Canyon Lake to Kendall County.

By DAVE PASLEY

Perhaps no aspect of the Western Canyon Water Supply Project is more intriguing than the partnership between the San Antonio Water System (SAWS) and the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority (GBRA). Like the heavyweight boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, San Antonio and the GBRA have stood toe-to-toe and slugged it out in a South Texas water war that has lasted 50 years and featured epic battles.

Now, with SAWS participating in the GBRA's Western Canyon Water Project, the two giants appear to have put their long-standing differences aside in favor of mutual convenience and pragmatic necessity.

Oddly, the GBRA's first major battle with San Antonio wasn't related to water. In 1941-42, the GBRA engaged in a fierce bidding war with San Antonio to buy the privately-owned electric and gas utility then serving the city. San Antonio won that battle and still owns what is known today as CPS Energy.

In the mid-1950s, during the early planning stages before the construction of Canyon Dam began, San Antonio approached the GBRA and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, wanting to become a partner in the project. The GBRA refused the entreaty and San Antonio sued to join the project. Eventually, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in the GBRA's favor.

However, by the mid-70s, the GBRA was in a financial bind because it was having trouble finding buyers for its lake water and the payments on the bonds it sold to build the dam were coming due. So the GBRA reversed course and offered to sell San Antonio 30,000 acre-feet of lake water per year.

Famously, some would say infamously, the San Antonio City Council rejected the GBRA deal in 1976.

Given this background, having treated water from Canyon Lake, purchased from the GBRA, flowing through the taps of San Antonio residences is an historic occasion, one a half-century in the making.

The introduction of the Canyon Lake water in the SAWS system is also a sensitive subject because it is the first time SAWS customers have received treated surface water.

Depending on the time of year and the total demand for water, 4 to 8 percent of SAWS customers will be drinking Canyon Lake water on any given day, according to SAWS Director of Water Resources Calvin Finch.

SAWS takes delivery of the lake water at its new Winwood Tank near Fair Oaks Ranch Parkway
and IH-10.

Because of pressure zones in the SAWS distribution system, Finch says it is likely the Canyon Lake water will be distributed to customers in the IH-10 corridor, perhaps as far south as Huebner Road on some days. Another SAWS take point, on U.S. 281 in northern Bexar County, is expected to be completed later this year.

Asked how the two long-time foes were able to put aside their rivalry and work together on the Western Canyon Project GBRA General Manager William E. (Bill) West, Jr. said, “You've heard the saying good fences make good neighbors. Well, good contracts make good partners. And we think we've got a good contract.”