This is what I know, as one of your neighborhood volunteers on the BOD.
I've had to learn on the fly as I have no previous experience with wells or water rights. Until I got on the board, I had no previous knowledge of a well. I live on the lake.
Last Spring a letter was received from the Edwards Aquifer Authority telling us that our well was non compliant, not registered & withdrawing water without a permit. We were given options. Abandon our well & plug it or put a meter on the well & begin monitoring our usage for a one year test period. After a meeting at the management companies office a majority vote by your board memebers chose to install a meter at a cost of around $1,600. The meter was installed on July 20th, 2008.
Harry, our local fisherman or I would turn on the well pump on as needed & turn it off when the lake reached the grass. As the neighborhood dos not have a caretaker it falls on the shoulders of your BOD. If the lake is not added to, the water drops every month. It is low right now.
It became aparent that it takes a lot of water to keep the lake at a desirable level. The lake is estimated at seven acres & is about eleven feet deep. Where is all the water going? 1. According to Johnson Lake Management in San Marcos, we can expect a normal evaporation rate of up to 3/4" in one day during the summer. One long timer, told me the lake drops about one foot per month if not added to. Johnson lake management thought that this was acceptable. He told me with a country twang, "Boy, we are in an extreme draught, Do you know how many ranchers have dry tanks?"
We use the lake to irrigate the area around the lake & the two parks. Last summer, when I began monitoring the irrigation around the lake, the system was set at twice per week. It is a five station system running 45 minutes per station & 15 minutes on the small park. After a seeing the water use, I cut back the watering to once per week. During Nov, Dec, Jan & half of Feb, I only watered the parks once per week for 15 minutes. The surrondind lake areas were not watered at all. The parks are high visibility areas & deserve a little more attention.
On Thursday, Earl Parker of the Edwards Aquifer, told me that we have a couple other options. Extend our well to the deeper Trinity Aquifer or contact SAWS about using recycled water. So I called James Sotack of Well Done, installer of our meter. He told me our well is probably 500 feet deep, the trinity is about 1,500 feet deep. We can not simply extend our well, a new one would have to be drilled. The trinity is not a good reliable source of water, we could spend $100,000 & he will not guarantee our water quanity/quality. The Edwards Aquifer Authority does not have any jusidiction for the Trinity Aquifer. Sounds like a risky option.
I also contacted SAWS about recycled water. The closest supply is at I35 & rittimen. The cost of running a dedicated pipe is $250 per foor. let's see 5,280 feet times seven miles is $9,240,000. Hmmm, not a viable option.
The hot button! Had we registered our well in 1996 or 1997 we would have owned water rights. Well who was in charge & why can't we get grandfathered in? I don't have the answer to this one. I've only been an owner here for five years.
I'm not an expert on our bylaws. I've been told that they require all residents to pay the same assessments, lake or non lake. Can't those lakers foot the bill?
Securing water rights. We must first find a person to sell us water rights, sorry HEB does not carry them. We can either buy or lease them. A guestimate is that we will need 45 acre feet based on our historical consumption from the past nine months, can anyone say draught. Leasing runs about $500 - $600 per acre, buying rights is around $5,000 per acre foot. Once you buy you will own them for life.
The Edwards Aquifer Authority classifies our lake as an ammenity pond, as such it's really non essential to reality.
Any & all comments are welcome. You can get mad if you want to, but knowledge & understanding will get us all further in life.
My $.02
