Aquifer dropping, and it could get worse

Published Sunday, March 23, 2008

By Brandon Evans

The eight board members of the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District are stuck between a rock and dry place when they look to set a future water usage plan next month.

On Monday, members of the four county conservation districts listened to a third presentation on the past, present and future of the Trinity Aquifer by hydrogeologist Van Kelley. Members have been educating themselves on the Trinity Aquifer before they decide to present their desired future conditions (DFC) to the Groundwater Management Area 8 (GMA-8) sometime next month.

The GMA-8 covers a swath of North Texas that is 45 counties large. At least once every five years GMA-8 members decide on a DFC for their area. Since the UTGCD was just formed following the November 2007 elections, this will be the first time the counties of Wise, Parker, Hood and Montague have had a voice in setting the DFC.

"We are in a catch 22," said Brian Sledge, an attorney hired by the district to help maneuver within the reigns of the law. Sledge is a specialist in water laws. "If you try to limit water usage too much you will kill economic growth, but if you allow too much pumping, the aquifer will draw down too much."

Sledge said the public will argue against cutting back on anything. But under current and predicted future uses, if some limits aren't set, everyone will soon be forced to cut down dramatically on groundwater usage due to a rapidly drying aquifer.

The last two months of research conducted by Kelley seem to confirm Sledge's concerns about a rapidly depleting aquifer. Before Kelley's study, very little was known about the current status of the aquifer beneath the counties of Wise, Parker, Hood and Montague.

"What's going on in the east is a really significant drawdown," Kelley said. "This affects your district, especially the eastern portion. With current pumping, you will dry out.

"I can't say if it's in 100 years or 1,000 years, but portions will utterly dry out."

Measuring stick

In his most recent research, Kelley looked at the historical data of 51 static wells in the four county district. Static wells are unused and provide a pretty good measure of an aquifer's level.

Shallow wells located in the western region of the district have dropped little over the years. This is due to being located over the recharge area and having adequate spacing between wells. However, wells in the east have already dropped significantly.

One static well in north central Wise County shows a drop of more than 50 feet between 1970 and 2005. Continue east and it gets much worse. A well in northern Denton County shows a drop of 250 feet in the same time frame. Some parts of the aquifer in Tarrant County have already dropped hundreds of feet below sea level.

As the aquifer in the east continues to drawdown, it will pull more and more water at a faster rate from the west. This is already leading to additional sections of the aquifer becoming unconfined. An unconfined well must pull water from beneath the level of the aquifer.

"This is very bad," Sledge said.

Karen Malone of Weatherford sits on the board. She also has a lot of experience in drilling water wells. She said she has already seen this happening in her line of work.

Drillers must sometimes drill through the entire depth of the aquifer and actually drill into the "red bed" beneath it. Water in the aquifer then flows into the hole drilled in the red bed and is pumped up from there.

"The water is going down," Malone said. "We've had to drill a lot of second wells for customers."

Reaching a compromise

Even if the board creates a DFC plan that can preserve the life of the aquifer, it still must rely on the rest of the districts in GMA-8 to go along with it.

The DFC that has been proposed by the GMA-8 allows for a massive increase in groundwater usage over the next 25 years. According to the Texas Water Development Board, Wise County has used an average of 2,637 acre-feet of water per year (afy). However, under the proposed DFC, this is expected to increase to 9,801 afy in the near future.

Kelley said this could lead to a 50 to 100 foot average drop in the aquifer level in the district within the next 25 years.

Barnett Shale's role

According to Kelley, gas production in the Barnett Shale is expected to use massive amounts of groundwater in the immediate future. By the year 2010, Barnett Shale production is predicted to use between 1,850 and 2,700 afy in Wise County alone. Gas production across the four county district is expected to reach 5,382 afy.

However, Kelley said this should be a temporary spike as gas production eventually slows.

Injection/disposal monitoring

The board has kept to its commitment of attempting to better regulate the placement and usage of proposed injection and disposal wells within the district.

The board hired the firm R. W. Byram and Company to notify it of all new injection or disposal well permits filed with the Texas Railroad Commission.

In February, the board was informed of five new permits filed for such wells within the district. The board now plans to file protests against the permits until certain demands are met, such as finding a proper placement of the disposal well and requiring a nearby water well able to test for any contaminants leaching from a disposal well into the aquifer.

The most recent permit filed looks to be rejected by the RRC before a protest can even be filed. In its permit application to the RRC, the company misidentified the well location by almost six miles.