Groundwater district warns of long-term artesian declines, urges planning for 2080

Allen Day, general manager of the Brazos Valley Groundwater Conservation District, told the Brazos County Commissioners Court on April 1 that the district’s monitoring shows measurable pressure declines in local aquifers and urged local officials and utilities to plan for long-term changes.

The district’s 2024 report showed just eight nonexempt permits issued last year—four agricultural, three industrial and one multipurpose—for a total of about 2,760 acre-feet permitted, Day said, down from roughly 104 permits and about 200,000 acre-feet in 2023 after a rule change drove a surge of applications. “When we have a rule change…people already planning. They came. We had a landslide of permits in 2023,” Day said.

Why it matters: the district and five neighboring groundwater districts are setting Desired Future Conditions (DFCs)—the long-term thresholds for artesian head pressure—that will guide management to 2070 and beyond. Day said the agreed allowable artesian reduction for the Simsboro aquifer is 262 feet by 2070 and that the district is tracking the decline toward that level. “We have to comply with the desired future conditions,” he said.

Key findings and management steps - Metering and fees: Day said the district is moving away from collecting fees based on metered production to collecting on permitted amounts; fee collections from 2024 permit fees are underway. He said the district expects about $834,700 in fee revenue from 2024 categories. - Monitoring and production: The district measures roughly 223 wells across its aquifers annually and performs about 1,000 measurements a year, Day said. Metered production was lower in 2024 compared with 2022–23, when drought-driven pumping rose sharply. - Triggers and curtailment: The district uses a three-tier trigger system tied to percent of the DFC—65%, 80% and 90%—to prompt stakeholder meetings and possible management actions; Day warned that curtailment (formal limits on pumping) would occur at the upper threshold if DFCs are exceeded and noted that curtailment is a statutory limit, not a choice.

Legal and regional context Day told the court the district is engaged in ongoing litigation and contested-permit hearings: a district-court trial in early May over a writ of mandamus involving a contested-case request for 32 production permits and one transport permit, several transport permits set for State Office of Administrative Hearings in the fall, and a federal takings suit by Fizino Investments LP challenging a spacing-rule amendment.

Commissioner and public questions focused on growth and affordability. When a commissioner asked whether population growth in Brazos County and regionally should be a concern, Day replied, “You should always be paying attention to it. Our job is to make sure there’s gonna be water here forever,” and warned that water costs are likely to rise over time.

The district encouraged public participation in the DFC process; Day said proposed initial DFCs must be set by May 1 of next year and will be followed by a 90-day public comment period. He repeatedly urged landowners to register wells so the district can protect property rights through spacing and monitoring; he said there are likely 3,000–4,000 wells in the district the agency does not yet know about.

Ending: The presentation emphasized regional coordination—Day repeatedly noted that pumping outside Brazos County affects local pressure—and urged officials and utilities to incorporate the district’s projections and triggers into long-range water planning.