By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members have raised questions about possible plans by city staff to drill a water well in the Lowe Estates on Del Rio’s east side.
Most of those questions revolve around whether or not that well will affect existing wells owned by Lowe Estates homeowners.
About 20 of those homeowners attended the council’s Oct. 10 meeting to listen to a presentation by Assistant Public Works Director Greg Velasquez and city consultant Mark Roetzel on the city’s efforts to seek an alternate water source.
Velasquez and Roetzel told the council two of the sites the city is eyeing as possible well sites are on the archery range just north of the city’s water treatment plant and on 12 acres the city owns in the Lowe Estates area.
Following the presentation, Mayor Al Arreola asked council members if they had any questions for the staff or Roetzel.
Before council members asked questions, City Manager John Sheedy told the mayor he would like Velasquez to address specific issues raised by residents of the Lowe Estates.
Velasquez said, “Just like Mark (Roetzel) said, the whole point is finding an adequate alternate water source for the city of Del Rio.”
Velasquez said the city will use technology, including lidar (light detection and ranging), to examine the sites before any drilling occurs and any drilling will be done using methods approved by the state. He also told the council the city is not looking at a shallow well and hopes for one that can produce a flow of 4,000 to 5,000 gallons a minute.
Velasquez said an ongoing regional drought has imbued the search for an alternate water source with a sense of urgency.
“This year was the worst we’ve ever encountered in the city. The flow (from the San Felipe Springs) used to be 50 million gallons a day (and now is) down to 15 million gallons a day,” Velazquez said.
Arreola asked a series of questions about the Hamilton well, located on a property the city owns off U.S. Highway 277 north of Del Rio.
“We had all our marbles on that one, that it was going to produce, what happened there?” Arreola asked.
“What happened, mayor, is that nobody read the fine print,” Velasquez replied, referring to the fact that years ago, when the city originally bought the property on which the Hamilton well is sited, city officials failed to also purchase the mineral and water rights for the land.
After additional discussion about the Hamilton well, Sheedy asked Velasquez, “But we still have some potential to get water from Hamilton?”
“Yes, we do,” Velasquez replied.
Arreola asked if the San Felipe Springs is producing enough water for the city.
“We have water. We’re currently under Stage II water conservation. We haven’t reached above 20 million gallons per day coming out of the springs,” Velasquez said.
“What are the experts telling you on that? . . . At one time I heard from an expert that said we had 30 years’ of water there, that (the springs) would never dry up on us,” Arreola asked.
“I started (working for the city) in 1998, and all we ever heard for the longest time was that we’ll have water for 50 years. Unfortunately, this year, the springs’ (flow) decreased significantly. I’ve never seen it as low as it was. And that’s something we need to start moving on, finding an alternate water source so that we won’t deplete the source that we have currently and make sure that we can provide a future for the constituents, our children and our grandchildren. That’s most important to me. It’s for the city to continue. You don’t have a city of you don’t have water,” Velasquez said.
Arreola asked if the city was looking at other areas as potential sources of water.
“As a matter of fact, we’re looking at these alternatives. We’re looking at wells, but we’re also looking at recycled water. We have an engineering firm, a consultant, who’s looking into that. You have the Rio Grande. That’s an alternative as well. Eagle Pass uses river water. Laredo uses river water,” Velasquez said.
Sheedy asked Velasquez to address questions being raised by Lowe Estates residents.
“How is (a possible city well) going to impact their wells? Is there any risk to them for contamination? . . . I just want to make sure that we’ve addressed all their questions,” Sheedy said.
Roetzel spoke about at some length about the geology of the area, adding he believed any well the city drilled on the archery range or in the Lowe Estates would not significantly impact existing wells in the area.
“But there’s no guarantee,” Arreola said.
“We’ll only know once we actually have the data,” Roetzel replied.
“So in other words, once we do the pumping tests, if we see it’s going to have a big impact on the wells in the area, then that could be something where we say we’re going to try and go somewhere else,” Sheedy said.
Sheedy addressed the Lowe Estates residents in the audience.
“We’ve been in contact, and we’ve already committed to working with you guys, so we asked you to listen to the presentation tonight and we will set up a meeting next week, and we’ll go through every question you have. We’ll make sure you have all the answers that you need. . .We look forward to sitting down with you all and letting you know exactly what we’re doing,” Sheedy told the residents.
Velasquez, too, said he understood residents’ concerns.
“If it was my property, if I lived in that area, I want to make sure you’re not going to contaminate my well, number one, and make sure that when you drill, that drawdown doesn’t affect my well. We understand and we’re going to make sure we do our best, because these are our constituents. They’re family. They’re the city of Del Rio. So we do understand that,” Velasquez said.
Councilman Jim DeReus, whose district includes the Lowe Estates area, said he wasn’t happy with the communications about the well process, saying he’d been informed by residents in the area before he heard about it from city administrators.
“Partly because, as the mayor said, we’d been talking about the Hamilton well and now all of a sudden we’re talking about wells just north of the springs, and I had no idea that we were even considering that,” DeReus said.
Velasquez said the change in direction came about because the city continues to get bacterial contamination “hits” from its Agarita and Hamilton wells.
DeReus also asked if drilling a new well just north of the city’s existing wells in the San Felipe Springs would pull water from the springs.
“Are you saying there’s a different geological strata just north that is not going to affect (the springs)? Why build a new well and pull water that would be coming out of the springs? We (would) just spent a lot of money and hassle and decrease our spring flow. So you’re saying there’s a different geology there that you’re not going to affect the output from the springs?” DeReus asked.
“The source of the East and West Springs has been studied for a long time. What we do know is that the East and West Springs do not appear to be immediately, hydrologically, connected, because the pools are normally at different water elevations. The cave that goes off from the West Spring, goes off to the northwest. The fracturing in the vicinity of the East Spring appears to go off to the north, northeast, so it appears almost like two arms coming together toward a center,” Roetzel replied.
“When there’s a turbidity event, when there’s a rainstorm that causes a turbidity event, historically, the springs don’t go turbid at the same time. One will go turbid a day or two after the other. The East Spring when it goes turbid turns a milky white color. The West Spring turns a chocolate brown color,” Roetzel added.
DeReus asked some additional questions about the area geology and how drilling might affect homeowners’ wells. He asked Roetzel pointedly if those individual wells are outside the zone that could be affected by a city well.
“Most likely. I mean, who can really say with certainty until you have actual data, but based on our common understanding of geology and these formations and historic well data, it would be very unusual if we found a productive well, it would be very unusual for the flows that we’re talking about to have a cone of influence more than possibly 100 feet,” Roetzel replied.
“So what you’re saying is that most likely none of their wells would be affected?” DeReus pressed.
“As best as I can answer the question,” Roetzel said.
“That leads to my final question,” DeReus said. “How are we going to actually measure how affected they are with this drawdown?”
“If you want to know the actual extent of a cone of influence, then what you do is, you put in your draw well and you put in one or more wells out at 50 feet, at 100 feet, and you actually see what the drawdown is,” Roetzel said.
Councilwoman Alexandra Falcon Calderon asked if the meeting with Jap Lowe residents could be a public meeting, saying she’d like to be “kept in the loop.”
Sheedy said he preferred to meet privately with the Lowe Estates residents and promised to return to council with a report.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. asked Roetzel if any seismological studies had been done of the geology in the area, and Roetzel spoke about tests that would be done before any well is drilled.
After some additional comments about alternative water sources, City Attorney Jack Stern asked Roetzel, “Are you able to give more specific answers to our homeowners who are out here in the audience, more specific than you’ve given today, prior to completion of the testing you’ve discussed?”
“I don’t think that would be prudent to be giving answers to questions. We know what the questions are, we know what the issues are, we know how to address each of those questions and issues. We’re not doing anything that’s experimental or new, but we have to go through those steps before we can give those answers with certainty. I can say that I know that the first site that we’re prioritizing is not Jap Lowe, it is the archery range,” Roetzel said.
The council took no action following the discussion.
