Well application worries Bear Creek

Circle C Golf Club seeking more water

The tiny Village of Bear Creek sits just a few miles due east of Dripping Springs, right on top of the Hays-Travis County line, on some of the most idyllic land in the Texas Hill Country. But the 370 or so residents in the 1.2-square-mile municipality may become entangled in a fight with big money and development over water rights to wells in the Trinity Aquifer.

One of Bear Creek’s neighbors, Circle C Golf Club, has filed a water rights application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to drill an additional well in the area that could pump up to a million gallons a day, threatening the village’s water supplies.

Fay Evans, president of the Bear Creek Oaks Neighborhood Association, said the TCEQ was required to notify all adjacent landowners and affected municipalities about Circle C’s application.

“Somehow, we fell through the cracks,” she said. “It’s my understanding that they used an extremely old plat map when they were determining who needed to be contacted about this. Because we weren’t notified, and we found out about it after the protest deadline, we began asking ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’”

The city secretary called TCEQ and was told that, under the circumstances, they could still file a protest, according to Evans, who filed a formal protest Thursday on behalf of her neighborhood association. She said the Bear Creek Council also voted at its meeting last week to file a protest, but she was unsure when that would be filed.

Evans said Andrew Backus, board president of the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, met with village officials last week, and agreed to work with them to begin monitoring wells in the Bear Creek area to develop baseline flow data.

The neighborhood association’s letter of protest cites both water supply and environmental concerns over Circle C’s plans. Evans’ letter notes that when Circle C drilled a well for its first golf course some years ago, residents noticed an immediate impact on levels in the aquifer.

“Levels in all the area wells dropped rapidly,” she said. “Some of them went dry, and we don’t want that to happen again.”

She asked the TCEQ if Circle C performed any feasibility studies using the Texas Water Development Board’s Approved Groundwater Availability Model for the Trinity Aquifer, and to provide copies of those studies. She also questioned whether the Circle C application is in compliance with the terms of Bradley Settlement with the City of Austin as it pertains to groundwater rights.

“I think that the issues in that settlement are being ignored,” Evans said. “The water rights issue really dovetails into that.”

The City of Austin is studying the situation, according to Nico Hauwert, an aide to Nancy McClintock, assistant director of the city’s Watershed Protection and Development Review Department. Bear Creek resident Erin Foster said she and the City of Austin have been monitoring area wells for some time.

Lauri Swan of Stratus Properties, which owns land close to Bear Creek, did not know about the application. She said, “We know nothing about it.”

No date for a hearing on the Circle C application has been set, according to the TCEQ website. Attempts to contact Circle C Golf Course Manager Chip Gist for this story were not successful.

©2005 In Fact News, Inc. All rights reserved.

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