Edwards Aquifer Returns to Stage 3, Cutting Permitted Pumping 35 Percent Five Days After Easing to Stage 2
The Edwards Aquifer Authority put the San Antonio Pool back in Stage 3 in an Oct. 21 release, after the J-17 index well's ten-day average fell below the Stage 3 threshold — reversing an easing announced five days earlier.
Farms, factories and water utilities that pump from the Edwards Aquifer are back under the deepest cut in the aquifer's drought plan: a 35 percent reduction in permitted withdrawals, up from 30 percent. The Edwards Aquifer Authority declared a return to Stage 3 for the San Antonio Pool in a news release dated Oct. 21, five days after it announced a step back to Stage 2, according to reporting by The Texas Dispatch on Oct. 27.
The authority said the change rests on falling water levels. On Oct. 21, the daily high at Index Well J-17, the authority's benchmark well in San Antonio, was 639.2 feet above mean sea level, producing a ten-day rolling average of 639.9 feet — below the threshold for Stage 3, the release says. The Oct. 16 release had listed the well at 640.2 feet. That earlier release moved the pool to Stage 2 effective retroactively to Oct. 5, after the U.S. Geological Survey revised its Comal Springs discharge figure. The San Antonio Pool covers Medina and Bexar counties and parts of Atascosa, Caldwell, Guadalupe, Comal and Hays counties.
Spring flow, the second measure the authority watches, was close to the earlier figures: the release put the ten-day average at Comal Springs in New Braunfels at 152 cubic feet per second and at San Marcos Springs at 95, compared with 151 and 89 in the Oct. 16 release. The cut applies to every Edwards groundwater permit holder authorized to pump more than three acre-feet a year — an acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons — including industrial and agricultural users and water utilities, and affected holders must report their pumping totals to the authority every month.
The authority said the declaration does not enforce lawn watering or other general water limits beyond curtailing withdrawals from the aquifer, and that residents who get water from a public system should follow their provider's directions. The San Antonio Water System's website showed Stage 3 watering hours and an aquifer reading of 638.7 feet on Oct. 26. Statewide reservoirs, by contrast, were 71.9 percent full on Oct. 26, according to Water Data for Texas — the 35 percent cut stays in force until the well and spring readings recover enough for the authority to declare another change.
