Dry County
Ordinarily on a clear, warm September morning, Jacob’s Well and the nearby rocks of Cypress Creek would be thick with swimmers and picnickers. But last week, the spring outlet was covered with wispy white algae and leaves and there was not a swimmer or picnicker in sight. Jacob’s Well, one of the most prolific and celebrated springs in Central Texas, has stopped flowing. Whether it’s due to drought or increased pumping to provide water for the booming growth in Hays County isn’t yet known. What is known is that the well has stopped flowing.
Months of scant rain and broiling temperatures are decreasing spring flows across the state. But even during the hammering drought of the 1950s, Jacob’s Well continued to flow. The spring, located a couple miles northwest of Wimberley, is the source of Cypress Creek, the beautiful, cypress-laden tributary that flows into the Blanco River a few hundred yards west of Wimberley‘s Village Square. “The water level has never been this low,” says Suzanne Gaddis, a Lockhart resident whose family owns a small cabin a short distance downstream of the well. “I think it’s people pumping.”
Gaddis could be right. Explosive growth throughout Wimberley Valley is putting more pressure on the Trinity Aquifer, the region’s main source of groundwater and the source of Jacob’s Well. About 10,000 people currently live in the valley, and growth doesn’t seem to be slowing down, as thousands of new houses and several golf courses are planned. One sign of that continued growth is Aquasource Inc., a subsidiary of the publicly traded utility, Duquesne Light and Energy, which has purchased several water utility companies in Travis and Hays counties in recent years. It also bought a water well drilling company and recently completed a huge wastewater treatment plan on Wilson Creek, an intermittent stream a few miles west of Wimberley’s Village Square. Aquasource intends to provide service for new housing developments in the area.
The rate of development and the pressure on groundwater sources have finally registered with local government. The village of Wimberley recently put a six-month moratorium on development in the area, and local residents are rallying around two issues: too much growth and too little water. “It’s a numbers game,” says David Baker, the head of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association and a staunch advocate for Jacob’s Well. The numbers, according to Baker, don’t add up. “Even if everybody saves 30% of their water per year, if you have 18% growth every year, it won’t matter.”
On Sept. 5, the Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously passed a resolution stating it will seek zoning authority from the Texas Legislature. That would allow the county to set standards for impervious cover and other conservation and pollution-reduction methods. But the path through the Legislature is uncertain. Republican Rep. Rick Green, who represents the region, is pro-growth and has opposed the authority of cities to control development inside their extraterritorial jurisdictions. So Green is an unlikely advocate of conservation measures.
Beyond the action of local and state government, there are other glimmers of hope on the horizon. On Sept. 6, the Hill Country Conservancy (www.hillcountryconservancy.org) announced it will purchase a conservation easement on the Storm Ranch, a 5,820-acre working cattle ranch located midway between Dripping Springs and Wimberley on the west side of Highway 12. Under the agreement between the ranch owners and the conservancy, the ranch continues to operate and remains intact, with strict limits on development.
The conservancy has ambitious plans. The group hopes to raise up to $350 million to protect 50,000 acres of the Texas Hill Country. While the Storm property is a good start, there are few large, intact tracts remaining in the region. And the latest growth statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau are discouraging. Between 1990 and 1991, the U.S. population grew by 9%. Population in Texas grew by 18%, and in Hays County, where the conservancy hopes to do much of its acquisition, it grew by 41%. In addition, figures from the American Farmland Trust showed that Texas is now losing rural land to development at a rate that is twice the national average. In fact, Texas loses more rural land to sprawl than any state in the U.S.
Central Texas could probably accommodate sprawling growth or punishing drought. But the combination of the two means drastic measures will have to be taken to avert a crisis. A likely solution will be a mix of more power for county governments, large-scale land acquisition by groups like the conservancy, and even revisiting the right of capture, the antiquated state law that allows landowners to pump as much water as they like from beneath their property. In the 1930s, Texas did away with the right of capture in the state’s oil fields, saying the complete lack of regulation was wasting an important mineral resource. But the Texas Legislature has adamantly refused to consider similar protections for groundwater.
“Keeping the rural legacy alive is critically important to this region,” conservancy executive director George Cofer said earlier this month during a press briefing at the Wildflower Research Center. That statement is undoubtedly true. But it remains to be seen how effective local governments and nonprofits can be in preserving the relics of Texas’ natural heritage. And our disappearing heritage now includes the silent waters of Jacob’s Well.
This article appears in September 22 • 2000.