MANAGEMENT PLAN

The District is required by Chapter 36, Texas Water Code, to develop a management plan, which must be reviewed and re-adopted, with or without revisions, at least once every five years.  This plan must be submitted to the executive administrator of the Texas Water Development Board for certification as administratively complete.  The Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District's management plan was certified on December 17, 2003.   Click on the thumbnail picture to view the Recognition of Achievement Certificate from the Texas Water Development Board.  

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DISTRICT MANAGEMENT PLAN

Adopted October 20, 2003

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

District Mission

Guiding Principals

History

Board of Directors

Location and Extent

Planning Period

GENERAL GEOLOGY AND HYDROLOGY

GOALS AND MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES

RESOLUTION ADOPTING AND APPROVING THE FAYETTE COUNTY GROUNDWATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT MANAGEMENT PLAN

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A – Regional Geologic Map

APPENDIX B – Historical Rainfall

APPENDIX C – Monitored Wells

INTRODUCTION 

District Mission

The purpose of the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District (the District), as required in the Texas Water Code, Chapter 36, is to provide for conserving, preserving, protecting, and recharging the underground water and prevention of waste of the District’s groundwater. 

The District will develop, promote, and implement management strategies to provide for the conservation, preservation, protection, recharging, and prevention of waste of the groundwater resources, over which it has jurisdictional authority, for the benefit of the people that the District serves. 

Guiding Principals

The District was formed, and has been operated from its inception, with the guiding belief that the ownership and pumpage of groundwater is a private property right. It is understood that, through the confirmation election of the District, the landowners relinquished some of their control over that right for the collective benefit of the community which the District serves. 

The District has adopted the principle of “education first” and regulation as a last resort in their effort to encourage conservation of the resource. As a result, the rules of the District are designed to give all landowners a fair and equal opportunity to use the groundwater resource underlying their property for beneficial purposes. If, at the request of the constituents of the District, more stringent management strategies are needed to better manage the resource, these strategies will be put in place after an extensive educational process and with the perceived majority approval of the constituents. The District will continue to monitor groundwater quality and quantity in order to better understand the dynamics of the aquifer systems over which it has jurisdiction. 

This management document is intended to be used as a tool to provide continuity in the management of the District. It will be used by the District staff as a guide to insure that all aspects of the goals of the District are carried out. It will be referred to by the Board for future planning, as well as a document to measure the performance of the staff on an annual basis 

Conditions can change over time which may cause the Board to modify this document. The dynamic nature of this plan shall be maintained such that the District will continue to best serve the needs of the constituents. At the very least, the Board will review and readopt this plan every five years. 

The goals, management objectives, and performance standards put forth in this planning document have been set at a reasonable level considering existing and future fiscal and technical resources. Conditions may change which could cause change in the management objectives defined to reach the stated goals. Whatever the future holds, the following guidelines will be used to insure that the management objectives are set at a sufficient level to be realistic and effective: 

• The District’s constituency will determine if the District’s goals are set at a level that is both meaningful and attainable; through their voting right, the public will appraise the District’s overall performance in the process of electing or re-electing Board members. 
• The duly elected Board will guide and direct the District staff and will gauge the achievement of the goals set forth in this document. 
• The interests and needs of the District’s constituency shall control the direction of the management of the District. 
• The Board will endeavor to maintain local control of the privately owned resource over which the District has jurisdictional authority. 
• The Board will evaluate District activities on a fiscal year basis. That is, the District budgets operations on a January 1 – December 31 fiscal year. When considering stated goals, management objectives, and performance standards, any reference to the terms annual, annually, or yearly will refer to the fiscal year of the District.

History

The Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District, formerly called the Colorado Valley Groundwater Conservation District, was created effective September 1, 2001 by the 77th Legislature in House Bill No. 1081 and was later confirmed by the voters of Fayette County in November of 2001, in accordance with the Underground Water Conservation Districts Act passed by the Texas Legislature in 1949 (currently codified as Chapters 35 and 36 of the Water Code, Vernon’ s Texas Codes Annotated).


Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is elected by the people within their Directors precincts, under the general Election laws of Texas.

Table 1: Board of Directors of the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District 

Location and Extent

The boundaries of the District are the same as, congruent with and coextensive with the boundaries of Fayette County, Texas, as stated in Section 3 of House Bill 1081, enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, meeting in Regular Session in 2001 as the 77th Legislature, and passed by the Texas House of Representatives on March 29, 2001 and by the Texas Senate on May 10, 2001, and signed by the Governor of the State of Texas on May 23, 2001.

Fayette County, 936 square miles in area, is in the Gulf Coastal Plain in east-central Texas. Bordering counties are: Bastrop on the northwest; Lee, Washington, and Austin on the north and northeast; Colorado on the east-southeast; and Lavaca and Gonzales on the south and southwest. La Grange, the county seat, is near the center of the county on U.S. Highway 77 and State Highway 71, about 60 miles southeast of Austin and 100 miles west of Houston.

Planning Period

This plan becomes effective upon certification by the Texas Water Development Board and remains in effect until a revised plan is certified or ten (10) years from the date of certification as administratively complete, whichever is later. The plan may be revised at anytime, or after five years when the plan will be reviewed to insure that it is consistent with the applicable Regional Water Plans and the State Water Plan.

As outlined in Chapter 36.1071, Texas Water Code, the Management Plan is required, as applicable, to address the following management goals:

• Providing the most efficient use of groundwater 
• Controlling and preventing waste of groundwater 
• Controlling and preventing subsidence 
• Addressing conjunctive surface water management issues
• Addressing natural resource issues 
• Addressing drought conditions, and
• Addressing conservation.

The following goals referenced in Chapter 36, Texas Water Code, have been determined not applicable to the District; 

§ 36.1071(a)(3) Controlling and preventing subsidence 
§ 36.1071(a)(4) Addressing conjunctive surface water management issues 
§ 36.1071(a)(5) Addressing natural resource issues 

RESOLUTION ADOPTING AND APPROVING 
THE FAYETTE COUNTY GROUNDWATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT 
MANAGEMENT PLAN

WHEREAS, Texas Water Code, Chapter 36, §36.1071 requires the District to develop a comprehensive management plan which addresses the following management goals, as applicable: (1) providing the most efficient use of groundwater; (2) controlling and preventing waste of groundwater; (3) controlling and preventing subsidence; (4) addressing conjunctive surface water management issues; (5) addressing natural resource issues; (6) addressing drought conditions; and (7) addressing conservation; and

WHEREAS, The Texas Water Development Board has adopted rules concerning Groundwater Management Plan Certification, found at 31 Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 356, Subchapter A; and

WHEREAS, The Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District (the “District”) was created by an Act of the 77th Legislature effective September 1, 2001 and by subsequent approval by the voters of the District, and has operated under the rights, powers, privileges, authority, functions, duties, and requirements of Chapter 36 of the Texas Water Code, other provisions of the Texas Water Code, provisions of the general law of Texas and the Texas Constitution and under sections of the Texas Administrative Code since its creation; and

WHEREAS, The Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District intends to continue to carry out the purpose for which the Texas Legislature and the people created the District; and

WHEREAS, The Texas Water Code, §36.1071(e) requires the District to identify the performance standards and management objectives under which the District will operate to achieve the management goals; and

WHEREAS, The Board of Directors of the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District believes that the Management Plan of the District reflects the best management of the groundwater for the District and meets the requirements of §36.1071; and

WHEREAS, The Board further believes that the description of activities, programs, procedures, performance, avoidance, specifications included in the Management Plan, and proposed Rules of the District, provide performance standards and management objectives necessary to effect the Management Plan in accordance with §36.1071; and

WHEREAS, The Management Plan includes estimates of the existing total usable amount of groundwater, the amount of groundwater being used in the District on an annual basis, projected groundwater supply and demand within the District and includes estimates of the annual amount of recharge to the groundwater resources within the District and how natural and artificial recharge may be increased; and

WHEREAS, The District is preparing and reviewing proposed rules, resolutions, orders, and directives to implement this plan; and

WHEREAS, The District is fully prepared to amend and or adopt additional rules or adopt resolutions and orders or issue directives in the future as determined by the Board of Directors to address issues identified in the future; and

WHEREAS, The District is fully prepared to amend this Plan as determined by the Board of Directors as necessary and in accordance with applicable laws of this state.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT The Board of Directors of the FAYETTE COUNTY GROUNDWATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT does hereby adopt and approve the Fayette County Groundwater Conservation District Management Plan and directs the submission of such Management Plan to the Texas Water Development Board for certification. 

CONSIDERED, PASSED, APPROVED, ADOPTED, RESOLVED, SIGNED AND DONE IN OPEN MEETING on this the 20th day of October, 2003.



Wm. Paul Kohlleppel, Jr., President 

Rodney H. Willis, Vice President

Martin Manuel, Jr., Secretary-Treasurer 

R. Clay Rightmer, Director 

Carl L. Wendler, Director


ATTEST:


Martin Manuel, Jr., Board Secretary

REFERENCES

Much information for this document was taken directly from the following sources:

Adopted Regional Water Supply Plan for the Lower Colorado Regional Water Planning Group (Region K), published December 2000

Fayette County Conjunctive Surface and Ground-Water Supply Study, by Jobaid Kabir, Water Resources Development Office of Conservation and Natural Resources, LCRA, published June, 1989

Groundwater Availability Model run of the Central Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer by Shirley Wade, Hydrologist for the Texas Water Development Board, concluded on August 19, 2003.

Groundwater Recharge in Texas, by Bridget R. Scanlon, Alan Dutton, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin, and Marios Sophocleous, Kansas Geological Survey, Lawrence, KS, published May, 2002

Texas Water Development Board Report 56, Availability and Quality of Ground Water In Fayette County, Texas, by Lowell Thompson Rogers, Texas Water Development Board, published August 1967.

Texas Water Development Board Report 238, Ground-Water Availability in Texas, Estimates and Projections Through 2030, by Daniel A. Muller and Robert D. Price, published September 1979.

Texas Water Development Board Report 332, Ground-Water Resources of the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in the Central Texas Region, by David Thorkildsen, Geologist, and Robert D. Price, Geologist, published September, 1991

Water for Texas—2002, the Final 2002 State Water Plan, by the Texas Water Development Board, published May, 2002

Water Supply Demand and Assessment of Fayette County, by Steve Glenn, Project Manager, Water Resources Development Section, LCRA, published July 10, 1989

APPENDIX A - REGIONAL GEOLOGIC MAP

Click on thumbnail picture to enlarge.

APPENDIX B - HISTORICAL RAINFALL

Under construction - come back soon!

APPENDIX C - MONITORED WELLS

Under construction - come back soon!