{"id":38034,"date":"2014-07-25T09:41:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T14:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=38034"},"modified":"2014-07-25T16:24:38","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T21:24:38","slug":"presidio-county-water-managers-offer-answers-but-citizens-have-more-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/07\/25\/presidio-county-water-managers-offer-answers-but-citizens-have-more-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidio County Water Managers Offer Answers, but Citizens Have More Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio:\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Tanker<\/a>

<\/p>

Tanker trucks lined up inside the City of Marfa\u2019s water treatment plant after a group of residents blocked the trucks\u2019 access to city fire hydrants.<\/p><\/div>\n

Two weeks ago, a small group of citizens vocalized concerns over Marfa\u2019s practice of selling bulk water to clients outside the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur water is too cheap. It needs to be expensive. We need water conservation. We need to think about that,\u201d said Buck Johnston.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago the Marfa resident formed a small protest to block tanker trucks using city water for their oil and gas speculation. The protest worked briefly but soon the trucks were rerouted to other spigots.<\/p>\n\n

Later, it was announced that no oil or gas was found. And though the trucks disappeared from Marfa city streets, the concern about water use in Presidio County hasn\u2019t.Rudy Garcia, a retired geologist who is the manager of the Presidio County Underground Water District has been keeping charts of the levels of the county\u2019s underground aquifers since 1996 since he moved to Marfa, now in a more official capacity. He contends that since 1965\u2013 the year Marfa produced it\u2019s peak water usage at 400 million gallons\u2013 the aquifer level hasn\u2019t changed much. In fact, his graphs show an fairly consistent aquifer level with very little variation since 1948.<\/p>\n

Basically, he says, \u201cThe aquifers of Presidio County are supporting the present demand for water.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can that be? Explained Marfa City Manager Jim Mustard, \u201cI think the easiest way to explain it is we don\u2019t have a bathtub with a straw in it, it\u2019s closer to a straw in a river.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Terry is a Marfa citizen who has joined up with Buck Johnston to discuss ways to conserve water. He says while Garcia\u2019s information is somewhat comforting, he is still unconvinced about aquifer levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to know how much we have and how long we\u2019ll have it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

One of the problems toward calculating future water sustainability is that both Marfa and Presidio have no obligation to limit water use if asked to do so by Presidio County Groundwater District. This is due to a loophole for small cities called \u201cThe Midland Exemption.\u201d But how can you monitor a county\u2019s water supply if you aren\u2019t monitoring the cities?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy opinion is if the water district is supposed to manage the water in the county it makes sense to me that all the water in the county should be managed by the district,\u201d Garcia says.<\/p>\n

Yet, even with the Midland Exemption leaving Presidio and Marfa out of his data sets, Garcia still isn\u2019t worried about the water supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any reason to be concerned about the supply, now you can complain about what it is being used for but that\u2019s something, well, you know. It\u2019s a matter of whatever,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

That \u201cwhatever\u201d is actually where the crux of the issue lies. Tanker trucks filling up on city streets definitely set locals on edge. Letters to the editor ran, including one that read, \u201cthat is sure a lot of water. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve very happy about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marfa Mayor Dan Dunlap says that about 500,000 gallons of water were sold in bulk, an insignificant amount, he says, compared to the 180 million gallons the city sells to private citizens and local businesses every year.<\/p>\n

On top of that, he says the water was sold to the client at twenty dollars per 1000 gallons \u2014 up from $4 per 1000 gallons just a few years ago. That sale brought in an extra $10,000 for the city budget.<\/p>\n

Said the mayor, \u201cthey drilled a dry hole and we still made $10,000. It\u2019s hard to find fault with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great that the city could use a resource to raise funds, no doubt about it,\u201d says Nick Terry, adding, \u201cI think what was alarming about it to everybody, especially to those people who parked their cars in front of the hydrants to block this process\u2026 is the potential of it happening again and again.<\/p>\n

On August 28 the ongoing water issue will appear on the Marfa City Council agenda. Rudy Garcia will present his water calculations and citizens will be able to ask questions and present comments at that meeting.<\/p>\n

The Mayor says he doesn\u2019t know if a large crowd will attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople tend to run hot and cold,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u2026Just like the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Marfa Public Radio:\u00a0 Two weeks ago, a small group of citizens vocalized concerns over Marfa\u2019s practice of selling bulk water to clients outside the city. \u201cOur water is too cheap. It needs to be expensive. We need water conservation. We need to think about that,\u201d said Buck Johnston. Two weeks ago the Marfa resident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[15,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38034"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38040,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38034\/revisions\/38040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}