Tuesday, July 11, 2000
Big Country towns stop waiting
for water, start drilling
By Ken Ellsworth
Reporter-News Staff Writer
With their lakes and reservoirs drying up,
Colorado City and Sweetwater were forced to literally go to the
well to supply residents’ water needs.
Drilling wells and pumping underground water
might tide the cities over during the drought and continue to
supplement surface water supplies afterward, officials decided.
If the drought continues and surface water
supplies continue to dwindle, other communities may decide that
digging wells is one of their few remaining options. However,
only a limited number of communities have access to aquifers,
the expense is great and increased reliance on well water raises
concerns that aquifers could be drained.
Sweetwater and Colorado City knew the process
of converting to well water as a primary or partial source of
water would be expensive, but they also realized they were fortunate.
Most Big Country towns don’t lie near an aquifer like the
Santa Rosa, which supplies their well water.
The Santa Rosa aquifer is a minor. Nevertheless,
it apparently holds — for now at least — sufficient
amounts to supply all or a part of the cities’ needs.
Developing the wells has been expensive.
The two cities have purchased land or underground water rights
owned by others. They’ve drilled wells, installed pumps and
pipelines, and laid water lines.
But city officials say the effort and expense
is essential.
Like people, plants and animals, cities
must have water to grow, enhancing economic development and serving
their populations.
It’s either that, city administrators
say, or dry up and die.
All’s well in Colorado City
Colorado City was the first to take the
costly plunge, an expense the city will be repaying for 40 years.
Without absolute assurance that Colorado City would get any federal
Rural Development loans or grants, the City Council agreed to
borrow $1.2 million, risking local tax dollars to begin a $3.5
million, 12-well project.
“We saw this coming more than two years
ago,” Steve Shutt, the city manager, said. “And we jumped
out and did something about it. It was an emergency.”
At the time, Champion Creek Reservoir, the
city’s only water source, was in danger of falling below
the city’s intake pumps and residents watched as every thunderstorm
seemed to miss the watershed.
Rationing was ordered and the city began
spending the $1.2 million to sink five new wells in a newly acquired
well field.
When the first five pumps came online last
fall, 1 million gallons of water began flowing from the Santa
Rosa Aquifer into the city’s lines each day, making a huge
dent in the city’s water deficit.
The well water was added to the 1 million
gallons the city could still pump from Champion, meeting the average
daily demand of 2 million gallons a day. So, rationing came to
an end.
When seven more pumps come online in May,
each with the capacity to provide 150 to 300 gallons an hour,
the city will have the capacity to pump 3 million gallons a day
into its system.
That should be more than enough; maximum
consumption in Colorado City on a hot summer day is not more than
3 million gallons.
“We won’t be looking at rationing
in the future,” Shutt said. “We will never again be
caught without water.”
Hedging against future droughts, however,
the city has purchased additional rights to underground water,
enough for another 3 million gallons per day.
“Now, we’re in a position to provide
for growth,” Shutt said. “And if we need more water,
we’ll just dig some more wells.’’
An additional bonus is that pumping water
from the aquifer costs just 12 cents per 1,000 gallons, while
the city pays TU Electric, which owns Champion, 35 cents per 1,000
gallons pumped from the lake. That savings will let the city pay
for the cost of developing the wells without increasing water
rates, Shutt said.
And federal funding came eight months after
the city committed the $1.2 million to begin the project.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Rural Development grant, funneled through Texas agencies, was
for $850,000 and the low-interest loan from the same agency was
for $2.65 million, adding up to $3.5 million.
Colorado City’s future calls for nearly
total dependence on the wells. But if Champion Creek ever refills,
the city will probably use the lake to provide about 20 percent
of the need, Shutt said.
That will take some pressure off the aquifer,
but Shutt said city officials are not concerned about the Santa
Rosa’s viability.
“It has actually risen over the past
15 to 20 years. It’s not a distressed aquifer,” Shutt
said. “We have measured it every day since we began taking
a million gallons a day from it and it has not gone down an inch.”
Ground water in Sweetwater
Sweetwater, which is in the midst of developing
35 wells with a $7 million revenue bond, is taking a slightly
different approach.
City Manager David Maddox said Sweetwater
expects to pump 3 million to 4 million gallons a day from the
wells. But he said the aquifer is considered an emergency supply
that will be tapped only in times of drought and when the city’s
lakes are low enough to require water use restrictions.
“It’s a small aquifer and we just
cannot pump it indiscriminately,” Maddox said.
Oak Creek Reservoir serves as Sweetwater’s
primary water supply. Lake Sweetwater and Lake Trammel are secondary
sources.
The three lakes are dangerously low, with
Oak Creek at just one-quarter of its capacity and Lake Sweetwater
less than half-full.
Trammel, the smallest of the three lakes,
is just one-third full.
The well field project is a few miles south
of Roscoe. Some of the acreage was acquired and purchased by the
city, which used its right of eminent domain to condemn and purchase
the property.
The property’s former owners and the
city are still engaged in a legal dispute over the land’s
value.
The project’s completion is expected
in September.
Where else?
About eight other Big Country communities
use wells to fully or partially fill their cities’ demand
for water.
Other cities, mostly those located near
the Seymour Aquifer in Haskell and Knox counties also have the
potential to tap the aquifer to supplement their water supplies.
However, Seymour Aquifer water is high in
nitrates and must be diluted with surface water to meet water
quality standards.
It’s doubtful many other Big Country
cities have the potential to solve their drought problems by sinking
new wells simply because there are not enough aquifers.
Stephenville is one of the cities that rely
solely on well water for its municipal supply.
The water is drawn from the Trinity Aquifer,
but some have questioned whether the aquifer is large enough to
supply growing demands.
A $12 million bond election on July 8 will
decide whether to build a pipeline to Dublin so the city can get
water from Lake Proctor through a contract with the Upper Leon
Municipal Water District.
Tommy Knowles, deputy executive administrator
for planning with the Texas Water Development Board, said the
drought has encouraged cities other than Sweetwater and Colorado
City to exploit underground water resources.
He said that could be detrimental in the
long run to maintaining stable aquifers.
“All of our ground water service areas
are under pressure,” Knowles said.
The only ultimate source of ground water
is rain, which seeps into the aquifers from the surface.
But aquifers are not replenished during
droughts.
In addition, Texas’ water resources
are increasingly stretched to the limit, Knowles added.
“Even though people generally use less
water than they used to and are more aware of conservation, we’re
using more water,” Knowles said. “That’s because
the population is growing. We’re using our resources better,
but we’re not getting better faster than the demand is increasing.”
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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