Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, November 23, 2010,
Item 13
>> since we have you there, no.
13 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding the charter and formation of a groundwater availability stakeholder committee to make recommendations regarding groundwater availability requirements in chapter 82, Travis County code.
>> good morning again, anna foalin, tom weeber and jose geeseleman, traffic tnr.
back in October the court adopted an amendment to chapter 22, which called for a temporary suspension of groundwater to be used for new plats, and that groundwater was comes from the trinity aquifer group, and at that time we recommended that the court form a stakeholder committee to look at -- to evaluate the groundwater situation and propose amendments to chapter 82 with regards to groundwater.
so that's what this agenda item is about, to talk about how to set up the stakeholder group.
and basically what we're proposing is that the court adopt -- or appoint seven committee members --
>> can we give ms. Boldin a little more volume?
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> okay.
>> thank you, mr. Media.
>> so basically what we're doing is we're proposing that the court appoint seven stakeholders to be on this committee and have them be representative of different segments of our community, and that's why we're here.
>> seven is a little smaller than I had in mind, but I guess that number would enable us to promote efficiency?
>> that's what I was thinking.
>> okay.
>> I have a question a little bit about how we're going to walk through this process, if each Commissioner is going to appoint one, or the court will appoint one each and then have two, and yet we want to have different categories represented.
are you going to come up with category per Commissioner or something like that?
how are we going to arrive at that?
>> actually, I think if we could pull the names -- pool the names and have the court look at the entire menu and basically have the categories met that way.
I mean, I don't know who all you might have in mind for appointing, but we ought to probably get the pool together first of all and then say, okay, we've got this represented here, and kind of do it as a court so that we make sure that we have the broad spectrum of interests represented, and you-all are in agreement with the individuals, no matter who actually nominated the individual, and then make kind of a combined appointment.
that way you don't lock in the appointments until you see that it is as broad a commitment as you want.
>> small --
>> I think a smaller group is functional.
I知 just not sure I知 clear in my mind how we get to the selection of that.
>> we do have, you know, people who asked to be on the committee, and then -- but when you're at the ends of the day it may not represent the broad spectrum that we're looking for in the final analysis.
so I think that's what we're going to have to do.
we're going to have to look at who's asked to be on the committee, supplement that with others.
so at the end of it all you should be happy that you've got a committee that got all the perspectives on it.
>> so I知 going back to Commissioner Huber's comment, though.
if we have a seven-member bored with one member appointed by each of the five Commissioners court members and two members appointed by the Commissioners court as a whole, you're suggesting that we put them in a pool, then each one of the five of us select one from the pool and then the full Commissioners court essentially balance out whatever gaps because of the five appointments?
>> well, actually what I had in mind is you looking at the entire gamut before anyone actually slots a person.
say here are 25 people that could serve on this committee, and here are who they represent.
here's a large landowner, here's someone from the environmental community, and then take that in stock as a joint appointment, say, okay, we ought to put him over here, put them, and then come to a consensus as a court as a whole that this is the seven-person that we would jointly appoint to the committee.
>> so it sounds like actually rather than one appointed by each of the five Commissioners, these are actually all -- all seven would be court-wide appointments.
>> more like that.
I mean, otherwise we're going to end up, you may be lopsided, everybody is appointing a landowner and we end up at the end of the day you don't have someone who actually lives out there, someone from the utility.
so I知 not sure how we get there unless it's done as kind of an iterative process with the court.
>> so this was --
>> I知 just going to run down -- because we've been sort of working behind the scenes on county-wide appointment process.
so I知 just going to run down sort of a checklist of things that we've seen work in the past.
for instance, a charge to the committee or a mission of the entity, and we already have that.
the threshold criteria for all -- for all appointments that seem to come up over and over again, residents of Travis County possessing skills or knowledge relevant to the mission, knowledge and public entities dealing with the subject matter, effective communication skills and reputation for concise I have argument, consensus building, below blah, blah, blah, commitment to attend at least 70% of all regularly scheduled meetings, possess skills that relate to the viewpoints of the body.
this is kind of boilerplate that we see all the time.
as far as the skill sets for this appointment, what are we looking at?
we're looking for landowners?
we're looking for residents?
we're looking for utility -- people with utility experience.
>> actually, I think utility providers because we've got groundwater utility providers out there.
>> utility providers.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners.] Do we feel these are the seven categories?
we just brainstorm them.
>> well, what I壇 like to see, want to make sure this is, again, just as I discussed as the other item that came up before on 23.
I would like to make sure that we have representation.
the drought situation where we ended up dealing with the farm, for example.
we looked at experiences about a real short, shortage of water.
the ranchers and farmers in that area were really blindsided I guess because there was not any water availability to accommodate them along with some of the other stakeholders.
in the past we have had several meetings with -- and I知 saying specifically precinct 1, even though some of the jurisdictional line may have crossed into other Commissioners' precincts, but we had several meetings over a two-year period with some of the c.c.n.s, those particular certificate of convenience and necessity -- necessity actually provide the water and wastewater services to the residents in the unincorporated area.
so it just appears to me that we need to be as involved as possible because even with the specifics of talking about water availability and through the c.c.n.s saying that they did have that capability of providing water, I think is something that to be added to the mix of things.
of course, some of the folks here may have been mentioned in the other categories, but I just would like to make sure that whatever we do as far as selecting persons throughout the county, and in my opinion I would like to make sure the person represents the water shortages in the precinct I represent.
so I would like to make sure that I have the ability to place those persons on the table and say here, these are the folks that really want to work and do the necessary things to make this functionally happen and we come back with some type of -- of new policy or whatever we decided to here.
but I think the input on the front end will serve us a lot more on the back end if we do it right from the front end.
and this is the front end of that approach.
some of those feels willing to serve, I need to get in touch.
I see the names, but there are more levels of water use other than maybe what's brought -- like I say, we got farmers, I got ranchers out there and, of course, we have residential and commercial uses out there.
so it's all across the board as far as water is concerned.
and, of course, I can go years back.
so I just don't want to limit toe any one area which I don't think is the case because it's not a limited situation when it comes to water availability, it is a county-wide need.
>> but you are suggesting we should enlarge the stakeholder group for the trinity ground water management to people not on the trinity --
>> exactly.
what I知 saying is this, is that the policy, if we're looking at the policy, I would like to have the folks here and willing to serve need to focus not only on that, I think it needs to be more pervase and not just trinity.
we have other water needs other than trinity.
we have the aquifer over there in the area and that was one of the questions that came to mind was we debated for white a while trying to figure out how we overcome this drought situation.
I think we need to look in that direction.
not saying we can't do both, but we need to look at all this.
why just petition --
>> why don't we have two committees then?
if we want to study the situations in eastern Travis County, why wouldn't we have another committee to focus more directly on those problems?
>> I have no problem with that, but that wasn't presented.
I see people here that may have want to serve, but the point is, it's the water situation and I just want to make sure if that's the case they both get -- they both -- it's almost like we're partitioning off and I think at the end of the day we have a policy here, chapter 82, and in my opinion it shouldn't be partitioned.
>> we have a moratorium regarding the trinity aquifer, and the committee that we're trying to appoint would basically conduct a study to put us in a position to make some decisions when that moratorium expires -- what is that date?
September 30th?
October --
>> October.
>> October whenever the date is.
but it seems to me that -- that maybe what we want to do is pay special attention to a situation in eastern Travis County, come up with a study group for that situation.
>> I want to be sure that we're singing from the same song sheet here.
because I kind of agree with Commissioner Davis.
we launched a process to review our ground water availability and water quality rules for this next year.
the moratorium or interim rule on the trinity aquifer usage was just a tool to deal in the short line with the severe problem, but my understanding was we were looking at the whole county.
and so -- I think we said we would look at the county.
I don't know that we said this study group would.
now, I don't know that if there are specific recommendations that should apply countywide, it seems to me we left the door open for us to do that.
>> and it may be that we need two study groups because of the differences on either side of i-35 and the geography.
>> and we might want to have a study group that's specific to the colorado alluvial aquifer which is different issues than the trinity ground water circumstance.
since trinity -- trinity is under different status with tceq than the colorado river or alluvial aquifer which has no pgma established on it at this point.
>> tom, correct me if I am wrong, but I understand the --
>> which is wrong.
>> > the statutes in the pgma in the county allow us certain latitudes for the whole county.
correct is this.
>> correct.
the Commissioners court has the authority to adopt water availability rules countywide.
>> I thought so.
>> yeah, there's no question about that.
but what's before us now?
a study group to look at water availability countywide?
I thought the backup that I read pertained to the trinity aquifer.
>> what I知 recommending is that the initial focus area be the trinity aquifer in western Travis County, but it could be expanded as the group looks at the scientific literature and the information that -- that we're going to look at, that the group is going to look at as it moves forward through the stakeholder process.
>> see, my first thought in response to that would be we need a larger committee to do it.
and the second is it will take more time.
>> I have a suggestion, judge.
given some of the questions that have arisen today.
>> okay.
>> it's obvious that -- well, before I give my suggestion, I壇 like to say that already some of the materials that have been gathered are the rules and regulations put in place by other counties that are more stringent than Travis County's as it relates to ground water or water availability and water quality.
and those rules have been adopted countywide for those counties.
so I知 thinking that maybe what we need to do is ask staff to take a couple more weeks on this, come back to us with a little more solid recommendation on what we might be looking at countywide.
do we need two study groups?
what would be the expanded categories in each of those groups or do we need one big one.
and a little more detail on the process as arriving at that.
because I知 not -- I think that there are quite a few questions hanging out here.
I very seriously thought that our process for this next year would be countywide review.
there are some issues in the differences in the geography of Travis County, the topography and the water types so we may need to address that separately rather than collectively, but the ultimate rules or regs that we may recommend or maybe recommend to this court would be countywide.
>> and I agree because as we're looking at the charge too, it says review scientific literature related to the trinity aquifer, colorado river alluvial aquifer, which is the eastern Travis County, and similar pertinent ground water availability information.
I agree we need to take some more time to -- I think our charge is clear, but I don't think that we've come to a point of clarity with regard to the appropriate size and composition of the group necessary to accomplish this charge.
>> I think that would be -- I mean -- what we need to see, I guess, would be some sort of feasibility analysis of do we expand this study countywide or are we looking at western Travis County and the trinity aquifer.
when I look at the charter, three bull let's seem to apply to western Travis County and the trinity.
but I do see the broader language.
either one is fine with me, but seems to me, though, if you look countywide at all of the water availability issues, you really ought to have more than nine people at the table.
>> exactly.
>> or seven.
>> seven.
>> I do have a suggestion for the essence of time.
is that if we could go ahead and get -- utilizing of some of Commissioners court Eckhardt's basic cat goric qualifications and the categories that we've already listed as to put out a call for interested parties so we can begin to continue to accumulate names for this list.
but that's not really been done yet and I think that's one of the reasons we don't have as long a list as we would like to see to work with.
>> what we've found in the past procedurely and this is unrelated to how big the group is or the charge, what we've seen in the past that works if we establish a standardized solicitation language that's on our Travis County website and then also a standardized e-blast that's available to all the Commissioners and the judge as well as the executive manager and the other interested parties inside and outside Travis County to send out their list too.
then we get outside the echo chamber and I think we can really enrich our pool.
>> so are we adding utility provider to the six categories listed?
in the backup?
>> let's list the ones make sure --
>> landowners and I壇 put home builders as part of that same category.
as opposed to a separate one for home builders.
first one would be landowners, home builders, area residents, utilities the -- I知 sorry, it's developer/home builder.
landowners, residents of the area, utilities, environmental, e.m.s., and agriculture.
those are the seven.
>> does agriculture mean ranchers and farmers?
>> farmers.
people relying on the ground water for agriculture production.
>> yeah, yeah.
>> I would refine that a little further.
I see where you are coming from in the backup, but in our discussion I think there are three categories of people out there that need to be represented.
the resident, the regular resident who is just living out there.
the regular joe perspective.
then the landowner who is a developer, home builder, residential home builder, developer, the landowner who is in agricultural production of some sort.
those three.
is that represented in your list?
>> I have all those three represented.
>> as distinct categories?
and then we also had not just any utility provider, but a water utility provider.
>> yes.
>> and then emergency services, environmental community, and then also do we want scientific expertise in ground water?
>> we talked about that and the way I look at scientific expertise is the same I would any technical adviser.
they are there to bring in unbiased, you know, not as much a stakeholder as they are a neutral adviser.
>> okay.
>> we would bring them in to advice the committee whether staff or outside experts as opposed to them -- this is likely to be a semi voting-type committee so I think your expert adviser should remain neutral in the process.
>> let me ask this question though.
you've got the barton springs, edwards aquifer conservation districts that is in a significant part of the county.
they also have a vested interest in part of the pgma area.
so would they be a scientific adviser for a voting stakeholder?
>> I would put them in just from I致e seen the role that they played so far technical adviser.
I think they have a depth of knowledge about how these aquifers perform.
they do have a regulatory role beside that which can be informative also in terms of helping to draft regulations.
but I see them more as scientific advisers.
>> have we tried it with them about participating?
>> I have.
I don't know if y'all have or not.
john duknic testified before us that he would be willing to help be a part of this in whatever role was needed.
the other one I had that Commissioner Davis mentioned awhile ago, and looking at it countywide whether or not we should consider commercial users.
whether that's a category that's significant in and of themselves.
>> they draw a lot of water out of the water table.
>> how many categories would we end up with?
>> that would be nine.
>> we took the scientific off there.
what I still have is six.
>> I have eight.
>> we have different lists.
>> yet another reason to take two weeks and flesh out the stakeholder categories.
>> read the list one more time.
>> I値l go ahead.
and Commissioner Eckhardt, if you would correct me to make sure it matches or doesn't match yours.
>> right back at you, you correct me.
>> first of all I would have landowners.
I would have developers/home builders.
>> irrespective of whether they own the land.
>> right.
I would have area residents.
>> how is that different from landowner?
what's the distinction?
>> I guess I知 thinking those -- perhaps different categories.
large landowners and then subdivision homeowners.
slightly different --
>> but countywide you just look towards a resident.
not area resident.
area would be county.
>> I知 so in tune to stakeholder as a concept --
>> how about a subdivision who is on a ground water well?
that's what you mean.
>> that would be the nexus.
what's the stake?
well, I知 drawing off the aquifer, that's what's at stake.
>> we have a homeowner on well water and then a landowner and I知 just trying to make distinctions.
when we talk about landowner -- because I mean we could have a landowner who is intend to go develop his or her property for residential development and then we could have a separate home builder.
haven't we double dipped there?
>> you could also have a large landowner who had agriculture interests.
>> do we want to confine it to a landowner who has agricultural interests?
>> I would, but that's part of what some of the problems are.
>> I think that agriculture and ranching, I think that deserves its own group.
>> I agree.
my argument here is to say landowner is too general.
that's might point here.
to just lay landowner the too general.
what kind of landowner.
>> I was thinking large lot or large tract owner.
may or may not know that they are going to develop in the future, but that was what I was thinking when I put that in there.
>> and that is distinct from an agricultural landowner or residential builder/developer?
>> I知 thinking someone who may not know what they want to do with their tract in the future.
>> but it's probably as much the current use of the land as the potential use of the land.
the large landowners are going to say I have a going concern, which is I ranch out here, rely on the ground water for that purpose, but I also have a potential of developing my large property into a development so there's a economic potential and extent to which regulations affect that.
I have a second interest and that is more of a -- my asset, what can I do with my asset as a result of your regulations.
so I can see it actually crosses both categories.
once that land, large landowner sells off to a developer, then you've got a second stakeholder which is the developer/home builder.
and what kind of, you notice, k, how do their interests change as a result of the regulations.
it's a difficult call.
>> why don't we go through the list.
are you on number 4?
>> I thought I was.
>> number 4 b.
>> agriculture, rancher, 4?
>> uh-huh.
>> landowner, large tract, developer/home builder, area resident or homeowner on well water.
is that three?
agriculture rancher.
>> utility.
>> water utility.
>> and water qualified.
>> environmental community and e.m.s.
I didn't have on my list at the time commercial user.
>> are we adding that as number 8?
commercial?
>> yes.
>> user?
that's eight.
>> commercial ground water user.
>> yeah, ground water.
>> I壇 be interested in knowing what volume of -- of -- what volume of commercial ground water users we have to work with on this.
I don't want it to be too skewed in a voting capacity if we're only talking a very small -- I don't know how we ascertain that, but it may not be how viable is the commercial.
>> do we want to find one big enough to represent large and small ones?
>> you know, I always recommend odd number of committee members because you don't end up in stalemates.
if you want to go to nine, broaden the committee to nine, that mate help out.
>> based on our conversation today, we're not about to be done.
>> all right.
>> that's eight on everybody's list?
what about number 9?
if you are here on this item and wish to give comments that you think might be helpful, please come forward.
we've got eight.
is there a number 9?
let's think about it between now and two weeks from now.
I guarantee we'll have more than this.
so our goal for two weeks from today is what?
do we want to try to get names to fill these?
>> yeah.
>> we need to land a whether we're looking at western Travis County or the whole of Travis County, right?
now, if we look at water utility, we expecting one utility to represent all of them?
>> I would think so.
or the primary one.
>> we're going to list -- if we're going to look at --
>> because normally when we have those c.c.n.
meetings, of course we had manville, we had aqua water, you know, we had several, city of Austin, lcra.
we had several folks that participated in those meetings that were actually water suppliers.
hornsby bend, southwest water supply corporation, and so there were several of them at the table.
now, it appears to me and I知 quite sure all of us have c.c.n.s or water suppliers in our precinct now.
if they would elect to maybe have a spokesperson for them, that will be fine, but that's something I think they will have to -- I would like to pose the question to them and see what they would say under that type of scenario as far as water provider.
who would really want to represent.
I don't know how you want to work yours out.
>> I can see having a challenge to have one representative for water utility provider because, for example, there are small water supply corps in western Travis County that are on the trinity aquifer.
they are ones that are threatened by overuse of the aquifer.
by the same token, youth got water supply organizations on the east side of town that are using alluvial water that are ground water from another source that may be looking to expand their resources.
and usage.
so I知 not sure that that's a question we need to take a longer look at to be sure --
>> you good it the interest of someone who is -- you get the interest of someone on the ground pumping out of these aquifers, whatever it is, knows the constraints and can helpous the technical details of what should be demonstrated.
>> split it up by having a commercial ground water provider who is pumping off the trinity and one that's pumping off of the colorado alluvial?
>> or some other water suppliers in the area.
>> that's going to make an impact on it if we should have that as our 9th.
>> do we need two weeks to decide whether to do it for the whole county or --
>> I think for me is there enough affinity between these ground water suppliers to say you can do one for all.
there are issues in the trinity you won't have in the eastern part of the county and vice versa.
>> can we make that decision next week?
it will take some time to get people to represent the different categories.
see what I知 saying?
we ought -- well, now, I mean just one issue next week would be whether it's countywide or western and eastern.
see what I知 saying?
because we make that decision, then we can start focusing on how we fill the different categories.
>> I think we can make the decision on whether or not all for one or one for all on separate committees for separate issues by next week.
>> it would simply phi it for us.
>> tell us the question whether or not we're going to have one committee for all of the county or two committees --
>> one west and one east and I知 suggesting if we can make that call next week, then we can start trying to figure out who would fill the different slots.
>> okay.
I agree.
>> you see what I知 saying?
that just may require a lot more thought than we've given it here.
I came here with one sort of expectation.
others looking at the same backup came in with another one.
actually I can -- either one is fine with me except we need to know.
because there's --
>> countywide, but what we're looking at is probably parallel tracts to see dough degree.
that's what -- degree.
that's what I知 hearing.
but you course you guys come back with what you've got to come back.
the precinct I represent and all the Commissioners know what's needed in their precinct so if we're going to deal with it countywide it may have to -- amend chapter 82 to that end.
>> if we come up with two committees, Commissioner Huber may want to give me her eastern Travis County appointments, Commissioner Davis his western county appointments.
all of a sudden the county judge is doubly powerful.
>> countywide.
>> why don't we do that.
can we?
we'll decide next Tuesday whether we're looking at one committee or two.
and we can do that, right?
>> over turkey.
>> all right.
>> so we can give you some alternatives.
>> beg pardon?
>> so we can give you alternatives.
>> by the way, since Thursday and Friday are holidays, the deadline for submitting agenda items for next week is as usual, 5:00 today.
the absolute drop-dia de los drop-dead deadline is tomorrow.
normally we go to Thursday and we add items on Friday.
absolute this week would be 1:00 tomorrow so we can get the agenda and backup out.
that was a good conversation, y'all.
we'll have new wording and have it back on the agenda next week for the described limited purpose.
and that's November 30th.
anything else on 13?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 23, 2010 2:020 PM
