Las Moras Spring failed to flow enough to meet groundwater management rule
Groundwater directors did not address failure for months
Stories on the failed DFC appeared previously in the Kinney County Post on June 27 and July 18, 2024.
Las Moras Spring failed to flow enough last year to meet a rule set by the Kinney County Groundwater Conservation District that measures the health of our aquifers. The failure was due to high levels of pumping, low rainfall and high evaporation rates.
A report on this failure showed that pumping has tripled over the last few years in that part of the county where most of our irrigation wells are located.
Lest we forget. Las Moras Spring went dry for four months in 2024, longer than ever in recorded history. It went dry in 2022 and 2023 too.
The district’s board of directors should have addressed the report in public as soon as it became available but did not. The report only came to light at first because Fort Clark Springs resident David Palmer asked for it under the Open Records Act and revealed the existence of the report to the Fort Clark Springs Association board during its June meeting.
FCSA June meeting (See 1:09)
Video by Adam Olson for the Fort Clark Springs Association
The rule is a standard called “Desired Future Conditions,” or DFC. The spring’s DFC is based on on several criteria, including the spring’s flow on Dec. 31 each year and how much rainfall there was in that given year.
The report was written by the district’s engineering and geology consultant, Dr. Bill Hutchison.
Read the report at the bottom of this newsletter or click here to download a copy:
Hutchison dated the report June 3, 2024. This annual report is one the board of directors is obliged to address in public at its earliest opportunity, which would have been at its regular June meeting.
However, for reasons that remain unclear, the report was not on the directors’ agenda for June, although the report was included in their meeting information packet. All seven directors were present at that meeting, including City at Large Director Matt Bland; FCMUD at Large Director Barbara “B.J.” Eckenrod; County at Large Director Stan Conoly; Precinct 1 Director Randy Schott; Precinct 2 Director Charlie Gaines; Precinct 3 Director Blake Ward and Precinct 4 Director Richard Barthels.
June meeting video
Video by Adam Olson for Las Moras Springs Conservation Association
The report is entitled “Comparisons of Actual Data and Desired Future Conditions for 2023: Las Moras Spring Flow and Well 70-38-902.”
“Well 70-38-902” is also known as the Tularosa Well, a monitoring well located in the central-northeastern part of the county.
The report isn’t important just because the spring failed last year. The district signed a state resolution with GMA 7 agreeing to meet the DFC. Groundwater Management Area 7 includes 20 groundwater districts covering five major aquifers in more than 30 counties. The resolution is the end product of thousands of hours of scientific work and untold tax dollars spent studying and reporting on the condition of our aquifers.
See “U”
Or download the GMA 7 Explanatory Report and see Appendix A for all four pages of resolution:
Learn more about GMA 7 here:
https://www.twdb.texas.gov/groundwater/management_areas/gma7.asp
At the meeting in July, the board of directors listened to General Manager Genell Hobbs read a few sentences from the report but still did not discuss it. At the meeting in August, directors finally asked Dr. Hutchison about the report.
July meeting video (See 32:18)
Video by Adam Olson for the Las Moras Springs Conservation Association
August meeting video (See 1:16:45)
Video by Adam Olson for the Las Moras Springs Conservation Association
Bland asked Hutchison if the district failed to meet its DFC. Hutchison didn’t answer “yes” or “no,” but did spend several minutes in explanation.
Bottom line, Hutchison said failing to meet the DFC is not siginificant because the district’s management plan allows the DFC to be “corrected” for things such higher evaporation rates, which in turn causes farmers to pump more water.
Hutchison didn’t address the converse. He didn’t say that the DFC needs to be stricter because higher evaporation rates and increased drought cause more pumping.
“It’s not that big of a deal because we’ve seen just in the last couple of weeks, boom, it pops back up,” he said of a rainfall that occurred in July.
He didn’t address the fact that some landowners have had to drill new wells because the water tables fell and they needed water. They couldn’t wait for a rain event to make the aquifer pop back up.
He also didn’t address whether scientific study could keep Las Moras Spring flowing all summer.
Bland asked (1:24:50) whether the district should be more concerned about the spring or the future.
“The spring is the natural integrator of the whole hydrologic system,” Hutchison said. “So from a technical standpoint, using the spring as sort of the barometer…makes sense.”
A graph in the report showed that irrigation in a large part of the county has tripled since 2020, from about 2,500 acre feet to about 10,500 acre feet (one acre foot covers one acre of land in one foot of water).
Pumping has tripled since 2020 in the part of the county where most of our irrigation wells are located, from about 2,500 acre feet to 10,500 acre feet, and is partly to blame for Las Moras spring going dry. “Management zones” refers to the county’s Production Zones, shown in a map created by Dr. Hutchison to show locations of irrigation wells and designating their correlation to the flow of Las Moras spring. Graph by KCGCD hydrologist Bill Hutchison
This map shows the permitted irrigation wells located in the county, sorted by “production zones,” which are also called “management zones.” Most of the wells here have an effect on the flow of Las Moras Spring, primarily in zones 1 and 2. Pumping in Zone 1 is thought to have the highest “correlation” to spring flow than any other wells. Map by KCGCD hydrologist Dr. Bill Hutchison
More study is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 and will be important to the time on May 1, 2026, when the DFC is to be updated, the report concluded.
Well done, Carolea!