Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District

I talked about this a little bit at the end of our monologue last week, which some of it got dropped, unfortunately, but not going to have that problem this week.

So in this next election, there's three spots open for the Hays-Trinity Groundwater Conservation District Board.

And there's some things going on with that.

In the background at the legislature, there was a Senate Bill 1253 that Governor Abbott actually vetoed.

Carrie Isaac actually got a bunch of signatures in the legislature.

asking Governor Abbott to veto it, and he did.

But the outcome of that is there's three spots open on the Hays-Trinity Groundwater Conservation District Board in this upcoming election, which I think early voting starts the day before this podcast comes out.

And we're being – somebody's asked us to recommend that Ashton James, Terry Polk, and Bill Davis maybe fill those seats if you want to have people on that board that are not for government entities coming onto your property without your permission, metering your wells.

Sure, I think that's a great question.

One of the things that I want to focus on is giving our Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District some more tools to have more of an impact about what they are charged with, which is conserving, preserving, protecting our aquifers.

And unfortunately, the Hays Trinity, they're enabling legislation doesn't allow them much leeway in enacting penalties really for, or at least for them holding true for when commercial wells over pump.

For example, in 2022, Aqua Texas over pumped their permit.

They were permitted so many gallons of water, they over pump 90 million gallons of water.

So in turn, the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District levied a fine against them, about $455,000.

Aqua Texas turned around and said, we're not paying that.

Groundwater District said, well, then we're not going to give you a permit for the following year.