Judge Dumps Limits
On Aquifer Pumping

SAN ANTONIO —(AP)— A judge has opened the floodgates on the Edwards Aquifer.

Ruling in a lawsuit filed by catfish farmers and irrigators, state District Judge Joseph Hart said pumping limits were illegally adopted. Thus, the plaintiffs may use as much water as their individual all-time annual highs.

Hart ruled in Austin that the authority failed to properly adopt its rules that establish who gets how much water under a state law regulating withdrawals from the Edwards Aquifer, San Antonio's sole source of drinking water.

The judge's opinion was rendered in a four-page letter faxed to attorneys involved in two lawsuits challenging the rules, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

Hart said the authority failed to follow the state's Administrative Procedure Act by not having a written order giving "reasoned justification" for the rules when it adopted them Jan. 20.

"The lack of that document was the reason the rules were invalidated," said Greg Ellis, the authority's general manager.

Ellis and his staff were to use the rules to determine how much water each pumper gets while also trying to stay within the legislatively-suggested annual maximum withdrawal of 450,000 acre-feet.

An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough to supply the needs of two average families of four for a year.

Under the interim pumping authorization set out by the act creating the authority, pumpers can take out up to the maximum they withdrew in any one year between 1972 and 1993.

That collectively amounts to 792,000 acre-feet, although the most ever pumped in one year was 542,000 acre-feet.

Observers said that even without formulas in place to limit pumping, Tuesday's decision shouldn't lead to excessive water use before the two year-old authority can adopt new rules by next spring.

Russ Johnson, attorney for the San Antonio Water System, the aquifer's largest pumper at about 175,000 acre-feet a year, said the decision "represents an unfortunate delay, but I think it's imminently correctable: readopt the rules in strict compliance with the procedural rules."