>> Well, welcome back.
I know that many of you were here this morning for the Stakeholder Meeting
for the House Bill 30 meeting, so welcome back.
Hope you had a good lunch and welcome to those who are here for the first time.
Today we'll be discussing the House Bill 1232 Study.
The purpose of this meeting is to receive input, to listen.
The board has been given a big job of doing a study of the confined
and unconfined aquifers of the state.
So while we're waiting for our computer to warm-up.
Thank you Robert.
I'm Larry French.
I'm the director of the Groundwater Resources Division here with Robert Mace
who mc'ed the morning meeting and our IT director also.
We have a number of Water Development Board staff here so if you're
on the board staff would you mind standing up and being recognized.
We have a number of folks here who are helping us out taking notes and being part of the study,
so thank you very much for coming.
I was looking for Director Jackson.
Is she here?
>> She's on her way.
>> She's on her way, okay.
Great. I just wanted to welcome everybody here again.
In a few minutes Director Jackson one of our board members will be here to say some words
of welcome and introduction but in the meantime what we're going
to do here is basically give you an opportunity as stakeholders and interested parties
in groundwater to give us some ideas and input on some technical issues
that we'll be facing as we implement House Bill 1232.
The bill is fairly short.
I believe there are copies of the bill out in the front and some other materials
but it asks us to do a let's see, hold on just a second.
This is a good time for Director Jackson, if you'd like to say a few words here.
Kathleen Jackson one of our board members will give some introductions while I play
with the computer.
>> Thanks Larry.
Well again it's great to see a wonderful crowd here
and so many folks here participating in the stakeholder process.
This is an important activity for the board and of course we want
to have input throughout the process.
I think it's important to note that we're starting the process with stakeholder input
and that we'll be continuing to get it as we move forward.
What we know is that the more data we have the better the science
and the better the science the better it is for policy makers as well as for communities
and others that are looking for making sure that we have enough water for the future.
So just appreciate everybody being here
and for your participation in this very important process.
>> Okay, thank you very much Director Jackson.
Appreciate your help and your input and support as we face these studies.
Just want to let you know maybe one way to start off our discussion here.
I'll go through some the high points of the bill is we just received some communication
from Representative Lucio's office who is the author of this bill and I thought just
to this point, it's a short letter which reveals some of the intent behind the bill
and I'll just go ahead and are read that letter to the group here and that will serve
as somewhat of a context setting information for you.
So literally, just handed this information like right over there.
It says, this is from Representative Lucio, it says, "I write this letter
to express the legislative intent of House Bill 1232 from the 84th Legislative Session.
I appreciate the agencies reaching out to legislative offices and stakeholders
as you craft the roles regarding the study of confined and unconfined aquifers.
I filed this bill hoping to get sound state-backed science on the makeup
of our aquifers and the amount they contribute or do not contribute to other bodies
of water streams or rivers in Texas.
Additionally the study should identify deep aquifers in the state and the interplay, if any,
that exists the between deep aquifers and those that are closer to the surface.
The study should address the makeup of our aquifers, the amount they contribute
to other aquifers in the state or state-owned waters and potential issues
with drawing from those aquifers.
For the purposes of this study the term tributary needs to be defined in terms
of an appreciable amount of flow into another body of water, stream or river.
This was considered a very important aspect of this study.
While an aquifer may contribute to another body of water,
stream or river that amount must be enough to directly and significantly affect
that body of water, stream or river.
We would also like to be clear that this definition should not include waters
of the United States or be as broad as the definition used by the EPA.
I look forward to further working with the Water Development Board
on this study and comment process involved.
If I may be of further help please feel free to contact my office."
So this is just breaking news.
So there you have some of the legislative intent and Robert will take the letter back.
Okay, looks like some of you may have a PowerPoint copy.
There really were just a few slides that I had
and it's not really critical that I have them up obviously.
Basically, to set the context here and by the for ground rules we'll operate this very much
if you were here for the morning session, I'll give a few more context setting statements
and then we'll open it up to comment.
You received a comment form card when you entered so if you fill that out
and we'll have someone available the to pick those up
and that will help organize the process a bit better depending on the number
of people we have making comments, we'll see whether we need to have any limits
but last session was pretty free form and I think we can do that again this time.
So basically, House Bill 1232 directs us to study confine and unconfined aquifers.
Determine the quality and quantity of groundwater.
Identify whether those aquifers are tributary or non-tributary
and then determine the contribution of each aquifer
to surface water flow or to another aquifer.
Now as we begin this study the bill directs the Water Development Board to find
or rather determine the minimum rate at which an aquifer must contribute to another aquifer
in the state and to determine the rate at which an aquifer must contribute
to surface flow of any water in the state.
So those are two questions that we specifically are interested in getting input
on because we are anticipating our staff and then through our executive administrator coming
to the Board to make recommendation to our Board to consider as we begin the study.
When we do the study we'll be producing a and this study will be completed by December 31,
2016 delivered to the legislature and they have specified that we will produce a map
which identifies the area and water quality of the confined and unconfined aquifers
of the state, a map which identifies the tributary and non-tributary aquifers
and a report which discusses those elements and also talks about the contributions
of the aquifers to any other aquifer in the state.
We've had some internal discussions on how to tackle some of these issues.
Of course we're here to hear your viewpoints on that but for purposes
of our study considering the amount of the time we have to do this study and the fact
that it's a broad, statewide study we'll be focusing the investigations on first
of all current data which is available now.
There really is not time to go out and do studies and generate data for the purpose
of the study, so it's pretty much what's valuable now.
And we'll also focus on the major aquifers of the state and the minor aquifers of the state.
We understand that groundwater occurs in other non-designated aquifers and if it's reasonable
and appropriate and helpful to consider others we may but our focus really will be
on the majors and minors as they constitute the bulk of groundwater that's used by citizens
of the state, so that's one direction we're headed there.
Let me see if there's anything else.
I think those are the main points I wanted to cover.
There's three-ways at least we can provide input.
One of course is participating in today's meeting.
Verbal comments, we are recording the meeting.
We also would welcome written comments just like the House Bill 30 meeting so we'll be happy
to receive e-mails or any written comments you want to leave here, mail them in.
We would like to receive that input by October 30th because we obviously need
to digest the input, make sure we have everything and then be able to form you know,
a recommendation for our Board and then we also have courtesy of Rima Petrossian of our staff
and others have developed an online survey.
I know a number of you have already participated in that.
That's an excellent way, it helps us to organize the responses so we'd encourage you if you'd
like to participate in that online survey
and there's a link provided on our agency website for that.
So I think that covers everything I have.
I was going to put up four questions we can have but I think at this point I'm ready
to have any questions, so if you have comment responses cards if you could pass them
over to the center and Rima if you could collect them and we can proceed along those lines.
Well, this could be very short if no one wants to say anything.
One comment, okay.
All right, thank you.
I've got a card from Houston Tower of Representative Lucio's office.
Would you like to -- oh, we have a microphone that we can provide you.
>> You've already read the letter [inaudible]
>> Okay.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Okay, thank you very much.
So if you didn't hear, he was just saying was his comment was basically expressed
in the letter from Representative Lucio's office that I just read
at the beginning of the meeting so.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate your being here to help out.
Okay, next comment and when you get microphone
if you don't mind stating your name and maybe your organization.
Appreciate that.
>> Am I allowed to ask you the question before I've actually filled out my card?
>> Yes, you may.
>> Okay, thank you.
I wasn't sure of the format here so.
>> That's fine.
It helps us with the card but that's okay, we can take this pretty informally.
>> Thank you.
I'm Norman Johns with the National Wildlife Federation Office here in Austin
and I guess my first question is well, I have a question and then maybe a couple of comments
but the question is does the results of this study is it sort of a permitting emphasis
or is it more just we're tweaking our groundwater models and our science?
>> You know as I read the legislative intent letter you know they're asking us
for basically sound science and basically that,
so where it goes from there I really couldn't say but it will be delivered
to the decision-makers, the policy makers of the state and be used
as a possibly as a basis for consideration.
>> Okay, I guess the comment I have is to basically be empathetic to the difficulty
of defining some of the terms that were re-mentioned in the letter
such as defining tributary using there were the adjectives appreciable
and directly and significantly affect.
I mean those are unfortunately wriggle words that make it very difficult to nail things down.
You know just in my experience as a hydrologist who has had the pleasure or burden of working
on both groundwater and surface water you know what can be insignificant on a major river
for instance like the Careso recharging the lower Colorado River could be fairly
insignificant seemingly but on a tributary stream like a Clear Creek
or Cedar Creek I believe it is in the Columbus area which is designated
as an ecologically significant stream that could be a really big issue there.
So that phrase, you know that catch phrase directly and significantly affect is very,
very has some really wide sideboards on how to construe that geographically and so on,
so I don't know what to say other than it sounds difficult and I would be willing
to continue being involved if that's how you guys set this up but I just can see a lot
of difficulties in some of these areas of trying to figure
out what the scope of the project really is.
>> Well, very much appreciate your comment and this is the challenge
that also House Bill 30 also faces in words and of course when you consider scoping a problem
which involves the entire state certainly you know what's significant in one part of the state
or in one aquifer or one resource is different than in another
so definitely hear your comment there.
I'm also like, if you were here the at the morning meeting I'm also like Robert [inaudible]
but I'm hearing you not necessarily endorsing what you might be saying
so but thank you for the comment.
Other questions or comments?
>> Mary Saws, [assumed spelling] can you tell us a little bit about the process that you're going
to use and the time lines, timeframes, etcetera.
You know this morning Robert was talking about outside consultants
if there was an SOQ out, etcetera.
>> Right, this study differs from the House Bill 30 effort
in that all this work will be done in-house.
This bill did not include any funding for any outside contractors or additional resources.
We considered that since this is a basically the data that we're going to use
for this study is already here so we will and this is the kind of activity
that our Groundwater Division, we're routinely involved
with so we don't have any contracts or no RFQs or additional staff.
What we're going to do here is we're of course receiving input,
ideas, written comment, verbal comment.
We'll take that and our staff will develop recommendations
through our executive administrator to present to our Board for decision on the questions
of I think it was the minimum flows to surface water,
minimum flows for between aquifers for the purpose of the study.
It's really, it's not anything else.
It's for the purpose of the study.
So we would anticipate at a future board meeting more likely than not after the first of the year
that our Board would hear recommendations from our executive administrator.
Like Robert Mace indicated those are public meetings.
The recommendations from the executive administrator staff would be available
for viewing prior to that meeting and certainly as part
of that public meeting comments could be given as part of that.
Once the Board makes a decision then we would proceed internally with our study.
There will be again when the study is completed it will again go back to our board
for their review and ultimately approval before it's published
but Robert do you have any other input there?
Okay that's fine.
Oh good. I caught you off balance.
We were just talking about-- the question was about the process so.
>> One thing I might add there which is that we have reached down to the groundwater districts
and other people involved in groundwater research in the state.
USGS and others to try to pull in other data
that may be available besides what we have in the in-house database.
And we'll continue that process as we move forward with the study.
>> Okay, thanks Andy.
We've got a card here from Thomas Lind?
Okay. Sir would you like to go ahead.
You have a microphone here.
>> Are you Mr. French?
>> I am. Okay.
I've talked to you on the telephone.
>> Ah yes.
>> Did you decide if it was three minutes, five minutes or what?
>> Take the time that you need unless there is a whole bunch of other people
that was pretty much a, we're not sure how many people would be here,
I just want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to have their comments known.
So let me suggest five minutes and if it's much longer
than that let me know and I received a presentation.
>> Right. It has a lot of visual-- [inaudible] do my PowerPoint.
>> Well, I can assure you we'll take that
or certainly our staff will definitely study it carefully.
>> Okay, well, basically aquifer [inaudible] of the dynamic and constantly changing earth.
There are numerous ways these aquifers continue to change [inaudible] I have here 15 examples
of changes that occur in the aquifers.
First of all, cratons at the basement or basement layer of the crust float
over the magma, plate tectonics, the seas, the oceans, marine sediments, stratification,
volcanos, earthquakes, meteorites, biological organisms, incompatible [inaudible], rivers,
mountains, variable crust, mobilization, climate.
These are all just a few examples of factors, of forces that change the crust.
There are several theories on the craton formation but in general, it is a basement layer
of cooling magma that floats to the top of the magma
and allows the plate, the tectonic plates to drift.
Billions of years ago, I'm sure you're all aware that we had the great seas
and the great land mass [inaudible] and then those began to migrate,
separate [inaudible] move apart from each other, collide with each other
and these caused great fissures and faults and what we're talking about is [inaudible].
With the seas and the marine organisms we're targeting the [inaudible] of metamorphic
and igneous and detritus materials and the stratification itself set up a situation
to change the earth's crust due to the pressure and the temperatures
[Inaudible]
Began to migrate, began to move upward.
They migrate laterally and due to the pressure [inaudible] and the salts incorporated
into the crust and it migrates continuously and regularly creates situations of cavities
and caverns and places where materials are trapped.
[Inaudible] the volcano began to move the magma up through the crust
and [inaudible] kind of a tree form.
If you can imagine a big tree coming up through the crust and all the limbs
and branches create cracks and crevices and fissures through which the water
and water carried minerals, dissolved minerals could migrate and be transported and deposited.
Then the earthquakes began with the plate tectonics and I don't know if you all are aware
of it or not but Texas has over 110 earthquakes, known earthquakes and there are others
and that's since like 1847 and just in the past year we've had several
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Yeah, unfortunately everybody likes to have their own petroleum industry.
I like the petroleum industry.
I think the petroleum is what's good for Texas.
A lot of people disagree with that but people [inaudible] overlook the concept
that we're overlooking our groundwater and when we create these aquifers that are less
than full we create situations for earthquake and these aquifers are a composite structure.
They take the soil, the geological materials plus water.
Water is a component of that complex composite structure
and if you remove the water you weaken the structure
of the aquifers and then they tend to subside.
They tend to collapse.
If you add vibrations they can loosen up and remove [inaudible].
Okay, 110 earthquakes reported in Texas 1847 to 1994.
Here's some examples that are in our area.
Now all these are inactive right now but they left behind this network of cracks,
fissures and faults, faults, faults, faults.
Faults are the name of the game in this situation.
Manor [inaudible], 1873; Paige, 1887; Creedmore, Mexia, Troutswitch, Wellborn,
right there by Brian College Station, 1857; Hempstead, Anderson, Rusk,
Center, Jacksonville, Atascosa, Alpine.
Alpine had the second largest earthquake in Texas, ranked 5.7 Richter,
the largest earthquake in Texas was Valentine
in Jeff Davis County 1931, 6.0 on the Richter scale.
And all sources are written down on the bottom of these PowerPoint slides.
>> Excuse me, Dr. Lind let me just interrupt you for a second if you don't mind and in fairness
to our audience here I appreciate your good presentation here but I just want to make sure
that we have time enough for other members of the audience to weigh
in on the specific questions that we have related to the aquifer study so.
>> Can I [inaudible] for you?
>> That would be perfect, thank you.
>> Okay, for [inaudible] there's a hydrologist by the name of [inaudible] and--
Sphies and Konkle [assumed spellings] Sphies did his research back in the '40s
and '50s [inaudible] '60s but they showed and this was way before all these fancy models
but they showed the concept of the cone of depression and how the edge,
the outer edge of that cone of depression tends toward infinity.
All right?
In an ideal situation it would go keep going to infinity but the aquifers have confinement.
They have length.
They have width and they have depth so the limits of that cone
of depression is ideally the edge of the aquifer but they never get near because of the faults,
the fissures and cracks and crevices.
Any imperfection that the zone --
like the ripple when you throw a pebble into a pond you get that rippling effect.
When those ripples from that zone of depression reach some perturbation,
some aberration in the aquifer that's the limit.
That's the new limit.
It's not this huge that people would have you believe the aquifer is huge
and tremendous and unlimited.
The limits are the first access to the environment from that aquifer
and that's your faults and we have lots and lots of faults.
In fact our fault basins in this area not only are significant but they extend,
and you may laugh, all the way to Nova Scotia and that literature
and documentation are in this also.
I'll stop there.
Thank you very much.
>> Okay, thank you for your time.
Appreciate you putting this information together and we'll mention to you and the audience
that we do recognize that faults do have a role to play in groundwater flow,
in fact we will be beginning with a contractor here very soon to look at one
of our groundwater availability models with the idea of enhancing the model
and to better account for some of the role of faults in the Careso, Wilcox, Queen City,
Sparta aquifer so that is something that we do take seriously and we'll look
at where appropriate, so thank you.
Are there any other comments or questions that we haven't and kind
of like what Robert Mace mentioned earlier in the earlier meeting I may entertain questions.
I'm not sure whether I'll have the answers on some of these just yet but we're happy
to hear them and happy to hear your views on minimum flows particularly
between aquifers and to surface water bodies, so.
Any other, this may be a short meeting if no one else wants to, Greg Segglemann.
[Assumed spelling]
>> Yeah, [inaudible] water district.
I just have maybe two comments or questions.
A lot of this information is already in the mags in those models that we use like leakage
between aquifers and interaction between the streams and the aquifers.
We're actively using those models right now
so I would hope the Water Development Board would take that data as you said.
I guess you're not going to produce any new data.
You're going to use that data.
>> We're would be using the existing data and certainly we've had discussions internally
about the appropriate tools and certainly GAMS has been part of that discussion.
Where they can be used we'll seriously consider that.
There's somewhat the devil's in the details there on how the models were constructed,
what they were calibrated to and so forth but there's a number of different approaches
that can be used particularly for the tributary question.
The GAMS also may have a role in the looking at the flow's between aquifers as well,
so where that's appropriate, reasonable and supportable to do
so we will use GAMS and other techniques as well.
>> And then my second one I guess so this would be sort of a static report
when you determine the contribution of each aquifer to any surface flow
or to another aquifer it's at this point in time, right?
Because if you add a lot of pumpage in later on that's going to change.
>> We're considering this based on currently available information, so yeah.
We understand that of course the groundwater systems are dynamic.
There's been a history to it but we'll be focusing on current conditions.
>> Yes, sir.
We've got a microphone for you here.
And if you could state your name I appreciate that.
>> Raymond Straub, Straub Operation.
Does the Water Development Board currently have data pertaining to discharge and outflows
from the Ogallala into base flows for Brazos, the Gold, the Colorado, any of that kind of data
that would represent how that interacts?
>> I know there's historical information on how the Ogallala may have contributed.
I know there used to be spring flow.
I don't know how much there is now but we'll look at whatever information we have
on our groundwater database and kind of tying off of a question I heard
at the morning's meeting we have reached out to groundwater conservation districts
in the state both for their water quality and any other information they may have locally
to help contribute to this study, so we'll certainly look at that as we get it.
We do understand that while we have, we're very proud of our database
and the work we have here we understand that groundwater conservation districts
and other groups on the ground locally can provide us a great deal of understanding
and help so we're certainly eager to get information that they would have as well.
Thanks. I think, Ron, Ron Greene has his hand up there and then--
>> Ron Greene, what opportunities will groundwater conservation districts have
to provide comment and different perspectives as this study develops
by the Texas Water Development Board?
>> Well there's currently the opportunity now which we welcome.
The next opportunity I would envision would be when we propose,
the executive administrator staff proposes how to determine these flow questions
between aquifers and surface water when we go to our Board for their consideration.
So that will be another opportunity because that will be a public meeting as well.
And we can discuss internally others but those are the two currently,
and then probably a couple of months into the future I see opportunities
but we welcome input throughout the process.
But in terms of formal public input those are the two I can think of.
I saw another hand.
Yes, yes, sir.
>> Yes, sir.
The gentleman over here mentioned the models?
>> Yes.
>> Okay, the models are flawed.
There's some serious faults with the models.
One in particular is they're hard to validate.
We can verify the math.
We can verify the differential equations and so forth but those all go to infinity.
How do you validate out to infinity when the crust and these aquifers
and these formations are changing by the minute?
One of the biggest flaws with the models is that they require a known fluid matrix.
How do you know a known fluid matrix when that water changes by the foot in a single aquifer
and between aquifers and these aquifers do communicate.
In fact, petroleum industry uses faults to track oil.
If they can find a fault they find the trap and that's where they drill and there are numerous,
numerous of these faults throughout these things so the fluid matrix in these aquifers are
so variable that there is no verification and validation of the model
without a consistent fluid matrix.
>> Okay, appreciate that.
They certainly were as we consider what tools to use
and as models being a potential tool we'll be very careful to make sure
that the correct tool is applied and recognize whatever limitations and challenges
that may stem from the use for example, a model.
But we have to be careful to make sure that when we use a model we're not going out of bounds
in terms of what it was intended to be used for.
So thank you for your comment.
Any other comments we have?
I'll start the Robert Mace going once, twice, not too late.
We'll welcome any written comments and online survey.
Rima, you'll appreciate me saying that.
Thank you very much for attending, appreciate your comments and looking forward
to getting your written comments as well.
Thank you very much.