San Patricio County residents voice concerns over $169M groundwater deal<\/a><\/p>\nLocal farmers who have depended on the aquifer for decades say they\u2019re increasingly worried that Corpus Christi\u2019s plan to draw water from that source could put their livelihoods at risk.<\/p>\n
Both Charles Ring and Matt Setliff serve on the San Patricio County Groundwater Board and both irrigate their own farms using well water. They say the city\u2019s new groundwater project, part of more than $170 million in water infrastructure improvements approved during Tuesday’s City Council meeting, could have lasting impacts on the region\u2019s wells.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m more concerned about water quality going down than I am the quantity of water that can be retrieved,\u201d said Charles Ring, a member of the San Patricio County Groundwater Board. \u201cWe both irrigate. We\u2019re both on the ground water board, and we do have a deep concern as to the quality of what we put on our crop, because as you pump these wells, they\u2019re going to get saltier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ring said that kind of salt intrusion has already hurt farmers in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our board members had a well go salty and it killed his corn crop \u2026 it can happen overnight,\u201d Ring said.<\/p>\n
Setliff added that similar problems have happened before and that some of those wells never fully recovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time the City of Corpus pumped the wells along the river we lost three wells around my house that were good producing wells that are not in good production anymore,\u201d Setliff said.<\/p>\n
Ring said the groundwater board\u2019s mission is not to stand in the city\u2019s way, but to make sure any future use of the aquifer is sustainable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe groundwater district is here to help preserve long-term value here, in our water to make sure there\u2019s water for my grandkids,\u201d Ring said. \u201cThe only way to do that is through some sort of regulation, some sort of control. But we\u2019re not here to prevent anybody from pumping water. We\u2019re here to monitor it and make sure that nobody gets hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Patricio County Judge David Krebs said those concerns highlight how little is still known about the aquifer and that the city should move carefully before beginning large-scale pumping.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know that much about that aquifer. There never has been a study on that aquifer,\u201d Krebs said. \u201cHow long can that be sustained at the rate we\u2019re gonna be taking out of there? And if you start taking 23 million gallons of water a day out of that aquifer, how low will that pull the aquifer? We don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to pull them down or not, but we need to do a study to make sure that we\u2019re protecting those people that already have their wells.\u201d<\/p>\n
That study could soon become a reality. This November, San Patricio County voters will decide whether to approve a one-cent ad valorem tax, a small property tax that would give the Groundwater Board its first source of local funding to hire a full-time employee and pay for the much-needed research into the aquifer.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi officials say the aquifer project is part of the city\u2019s long-term plan to diversify its water supply and prepare for future droughts. They add that the project won\u2019t begin pumping until November 2026 at the earliest given the additional infrastructure needed, leaving many in the Coastal Bend, especially those in the city of Sinton, worried that both water and time are running out.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farmers fear Corpus Christi\u2019s plan to draw from the Gulf Coast Aquifer could drain wells and worsen salinity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-16602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}