Water wisdom? Or marketing mischief?

An interview with water marketer Dan EasonBy Bill SontagFeature WriterDan Eason dreams of building a monster pipeline, carrying water from Uvalde County and Medina County to help satiate the thirst of a growing San Antonio/Austin megalopolis. He has met stiff resistance.The 1994 speech communications graduate of Texas A&M University sees himself as a communicator, an educator and a cheerleader on behalf of landowners in the rural counties between Del Rio and San Antonio. Eason’s MBA from Pepperdine University, Malibu, Calif., prepared him to join the business of his father-in-law, R. B. “Bob” Willoughby, president of edwardswater.com. Del Rio LIVE! interviewed Eason in his Uvalde office, Tuesday, June 20th. Though geologic, hydrologic, geographic and political differences exist between Uvalde and Del Rio, many of the issues are similar to those facing Val Verde County as a committee strives – once more – to find protective measures for groundwater.As vice president of the firm since 2001, Eason has advanced both water rights information and groundwater protection advocacy to holders of more than 100 rural residents holding Edwards Aquifer Authority water permits. Eason admits that water issues in Texas are complicated, both by history and misinformation. The chronology of events creating the Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA) in 1993 is an Aristotelean illustration of such complexity. (See www.edwardsaquifer.org/pages/chrono.)The authority governs water use in a huge, crescent-shaped mosaic of seven Central Texas counties lying along the Balcones Escarpment, the prominently faulted southern edge of the Edwards Plateau. Along the escarpment, water flows – often abundantly – from springs, collected high on the plateau, emerging low at its base. “Not only is this one of the bigger aquifers in the country, with great, quality water, tremendous water, it recharges! I mean it replenishes itself,” enthused Eason. He compared the Edwards to the Oglala Aquifer stretching from the Panhandle of Texas to South Dakota. Eason said the Oglala is huge, but doesn’t recharge. “Once they use all that, it’s gone.” Texas Almanac 2006-2007 delineates the path of the Balcones Escarpment: “This geologic fault or shearing of underground strata extends eastward from a point on the Rio Grande near Del Rio. It extends to the northwestern part of Bexar County [San Antonio] where it turns northeastward … intersecting the Colorado River immediately above Austin.” Del Rio’s seven San Felipe Springs are local proof of the abundance, clarity and cleanliness of springwater that emerges here, filtered by miles of porous limestone passages, crevices, subterranean fissures and caves – the whole named “karst” by geologists and spelunkers.The Edwards Aquifer is thought to pool water underground below the western margin of neighboring Kinney County, continuing eastward to Hays County (San Marcos area). But Eason’s focus is on the groundwater below the counties of Uvalde and Medina.Within the authority’s governance are three zones, each important to the other. (See map.) On the southernmost margin of the crescent is the “artesian zone” where springs erupt – sometimes forcefully, others as quiet flowage. The recharge area, fed by the drainage, collects water from a variety of sources, ensuring the health and vigor of springs… unless there’s interference in the either of these zones by overuse, pollution, or extended drought.Further complicating the subterranean picture is what Eason calls “the Knippa Gap.” The gap divides the aquifer into east and west subterranean pools. “Well, there are barrier faults around Knippa – actually closer to Sabinal – that’s just a barrier, so what we have is the Uvalde Pool and the San Antonio Pool,” Eason said. Pointing to a map on his computer, Eason summarized his optimism about the steady marketability of groundwater in his area. “The fault line is right about here on the Uvalde County/Medina County line, and when this one [the San Antonio Pool] might fluctuate 11 percent or more – I mean, really, it jumps up and down – the Uvalde Pool stays steady as can be,” Eason grinned. He observed that San Antonio is on the threshold of water restrictions because of the recent downward level of the Edwards Aquifer. “But our Uvalde Pool is still 15 feet above any water use restriction level,” Eason said, adding that since May 30, 2005, Uvalde has had less than six inches of rain. But groundwater-pumping permits are in place, and Eason struggles to explain their complexity, all measured in allowances of acre feet – the amount of water required to cover an acre of land to a water depth of one foot, or 325,851 gallons.For starters, the Texas legislature keeps a close watch on water use, and specifies acre-feet allowances to each of the state’s major aquifers. According to Eason, the Edwards Aquifer Authority received an allocation of 450,000 acre feet in 2006, with a pending reduction. “By 2008, the legislature told them, you can only pump 400,000 acre feet, because they were trying to reduce the total amount.” Eason said the planned reduction was to protect spring flows around San Marcos, to avoid “the risk of the blind salamander and some other species going extinct.”“Well, here’s the problem,” Eason said, describing an apparent conflict with rules issued by the legislature. “EAA issued over 565,000 acre feet worth of permits. They’ve been charged with the task of limiting the use to 450,000, so there’s a problem… because the legislature also said … you have to give irrigators two acre feet per acre of land, and you also have to give municipalities a certain amount. When they (EAA) went and did that, it totaled up to be 565,000 acre feet, so it wasn’t the EAA’s fault,” Eason said, shaking his head.Permits are based on stated historical uses. “EAA said, ‘You have to have a permit to take water out of the aquifer, and prove to us how much water you’ve used in the past, and based on that and formulas we’ll issue you permits,’” Eason said. So, farmers and other irrigators were issued permits for two acre feet for every acre of land they irrigated. “Some years you use more, some years less. But one acre foot has to ‘stay with the land.’ It’s called the base irrigation or water right. EAA doesn’t want that sold, but the other acre foot can be sold, and that’s called the ‘transferable amount.’”Eason’s contention is that farmers and other irrigators have found ways – one in particular – to use far less than the water allocated by EAA permits, and the difference should be theirs to sell – profits to struggling farmers, water supply to thirsty urbanites. In the late 1980s, Eason explained, irrigators in Uvalde County used about 145,000 acre feet. More recently, EAA authorized extraction of 126,000 acre feet, but with the advent of center pivot irrigation the irrigators now use only about 51,000 acre feet for their own purposes, Eason said.Flood irrigation is tremendously inefficient, if only because of evaporation rates from exposed water surfaces, Eason said. “Irrigators started investing in pivots for their irrigation, so now they use a lot less … and now, about 51,000 acre feet worth of permits are what’s being pumped out,” about a third of the usage two decades ago. That total includes about 44,000 acre feet used by irrigators, and 4,500 acre feet consumed by municipalities. Eason says farmers “conserve” about 65,000 acre feet each year, and they should be allowed to sell that amount, considering their efforts to use improved irrigation methods to reduce water usage. Furthermore, the profits are needed, Eason said, because of higher crop and livestock production costs, lower government subsidies, and increased competition.When government subsidies diminish during cost-cutting exercises in legislative palaces, Eason asked, “What happens to farmers then? They need something else. I mean, why would you do farming when the numbers start to look like this? Commodity prices are about the same now as they were back in the 70s, by the way. It’s crazy. Your equipment costs have gone up, your government regulations have gone up, the whole bit. Farming is – well – it’s a tough business,” Eason said. “What we’d like to do – at edwardswater.com – is we’d like to pull so many permits – say 40,000 acre feet of these permits – out of the Uvalde Pool, and pump it into a pipeline and send it to San Antonio.” Asked what happens to the water if it’s not used that way, Eason said, “Well, it sits there. We don’t use it. Some of it just flows out, because you do have discharge also. Automatic discharge. I mean it goes out the south end, but, no, it’s just not being used. So our argument is, wait a minute, this is an unused resource. Let’s use this – farming is suffering – let’s use this to help supplement the income to farmers out here. It’s the irrigators that have the excess permits. It’s the irrigators who’ve conserved… It’s going to happen someday,” Eason projected.“There’s a law that prohibits us from building a pipeline and transferring water out of Uvalde County… it’s a state law… So we tried to change that law – here at edwardswater.com, here, and some of the irrigators – but the residents of Uvalde don’t want it to happen. It’s more of, ‘Wait a minute, if you build a pipeline here, the City of San Antonio takes the water out, then they’re going to take all the water they want,” and that’s the fear – of them taking everything they want out of the Uvalde pool, at the cost of the small municipalities.”Is that an unfounded fear? “Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I say, well, my gosh, this thing is regulated like crazy. I mean, the rules are set up to prevent things like that from happening,” Eason countered. But Eason admitted that municipal growth muddies the water picture somewhat. Municipal permits have not, thus far, included projections of population growth, but are based rather on historic usage.Is this a problem? “Well, sure, oh, yeah, absolutely,” Eason gushed, adding that Uvalde is growing robustly. “Everybody needs to conserve. That’s the thing.. You can no longer use water like you used to use water. Conservation needs to be part of how this water is managed…It’s not very popular. The residents in Uvalde don’t want this pipeline to happen, because they’re afraid, and they say things like it’ll suck the town dry, and San Antonio will just come out here and take all they want. So, I’ll tell you the people of Uvalde really fight the pipeline, they fight the idea of San Antonio and any municipality taking the water.”Eason summarized the fears he’s heard repeatedly, all of which he believes are groundless: “Loss of water pressure, only a few people getting rich, the San Antonio folks will disregard limits on the pipeline and suck the aquifer dry, and it will destroy the economy of Uvalde.” Eason bemoans the difficulty in finding engaging discussion of the issues, due in large part to the polarization of the subject by his opponents. “You go ask the city manager, and you ask the mayor, one of the other city leaders, and they say, ‘Oh, well, there are two million people in San Antonio, there are 25,000 people in Uvalde County.’ I mean, they’re really afraid that two million people – if they get to water shortage – they’ll take everything they want out of Uvalde County, and they’ll say to you, ‘Well, if they changed the pipeline law, what’s to keep them from changing the other laws? Two million people will win out over 25,000 people.’ So that’s their argument. And we’ve tried now in three sessions, and we haven’t changed the law.”Del Rio LIVE! asked Eason how the fears could be overcome, if, indeed, San Antonio went into severe drought. Is there any thought to writing a pipeline authorization law with clauses ensuring that the authorized amount to be taken through the pipeline changes every time there’s a change in aquifer levels? “We’re OK with that. We’ll do that! But the other side won’t come to the table,” Eason said, clearly exasperated. “The line has been drawn in the sand. We can’t even come to the table…. A stakeholder is going to get hurt if they don’t come to the table. And that ends up being my conclusion.”The toll for such controversial positions on Eason and his family in a community he loves has been tough at times. “We’re really torn, because we’ve lived in this community for so long, and we know all these people, and we’re friends with all these people. So they like us most of the time, but not when we’re trying to change this law. I’ve been compared to Sadaam Hussein. In the newspaper – a liberal newspaper – we’ve been on the cover, the front page, had editorials written about us. Oh yeah, we’re not very popular.” Eason said he’s been picketed on the Uvalde County Courthouse Square during a session of the Texas legislature. An antagonistic writer who “had always written so unfairly about us,” asked for an interview. Eason declined the interview. Then, “playing cards,” similar to those used by U.S. military in Iraq to identify targets of opportunity, were published in a newspaper blast, depicting Eason and State Sen. Frank Madla, a supporter of the pipeline, respectively as the Jack of Clubs and the Ace of Spades. But Eason is insistent that water rules will prevail over individual or special interests, one way or another. “You’re going to see that whatever the EAA does is going to start happening statewide. I mean, already the water districts … they’re going to become more strict. Everybody’s sort of watching the EAA and how the EAA handles the situation, because, like it or not, water’s going to be regulated, and even more than it is. So there are going to be a lot of restrictions, and it’s just a matter of how those restrictions are handled.”Eason appeared stunned to hear that irrigation by flooding is being used in Del Rio to water businesses and residential lawns. “That is the worst way to irrigate, but that’s typical…. Where’s the plan for conservation?” Eason queried. Pointing out statistics cited in a 2005 presentation here, Eason exclaimed that San Antonio – thirsty though it is – initiated a vigorous and successful water conservation program. Now standing at an approximate consumption average of 149 gallons-per-capita-daily, San Antonio is bested by Eagle Pass at 128 gpcd. El Pasoans, also robust in their water conservation efforts, use about 155 gpcd. But Uvalde’s rating is 214 gpcd, and Del Rio’s is a whopping 280 gpcd.“Where’s the aggressive plan for Del Rio? San Antonio has an aggressive plan, and it’s working. El Paso, an aggressive plan, and it’s working. Where’s Del Rio’s?” Eason exclaimed.Refer to www.edwardswater.com for more information.Questions or comments? Contact Bill Sontag directly.