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TCEQ lowers Conroe’s water capacity requirement; city staff recommends narrower moratorium area
Summary
City staff said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted Conroe a revised Alternative Capacity Requirement (ACR), lowering the permit baseline and allowing the city to narrow a temporary development moratorium. Staff recommended a reduced moratorium area and said the ACR must be preserved by monitoring demand.
Conroe city staff told the City Council on Aug. 13 that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has approved a revised Alternative Capacity Requirement (ACR) that lowers the citywide baseline used to judge water system capacity.
Nancy McKeska, city staff, said the TCEQ approved an ACR of 0.46 gallons per minute per connection — down from the statutory 0.6 baseline — and that the allowance was expedited after letters from state legislators. She said the revised ACR carries conditions, including a 42‑month expiration and monitoring requirements that the city must meet for continued use.
‘‘This is good information because this is related to our overall citywide capacity requirement,’’ McKeska told the council. She also said the ACR will expire in 42 months and that the city must show three consecutive years of the required usage numbers to obtain a subsequent ACR.
Staff recommended that the council extend an existing temporary development moratorium but in a reduced geographic footprint. City Engineer/department representative Norman McGuire said staff’s recommendation is to compress the moratorium area to the red zones shown in maps provided to councilors and to remove other areas from the moratorium as capacity projects come online. He warned the council that if the city’s usage rises above a regulatory threshold the ACR would be void and the city would revert to the 0.6 gpm baseline.
Council members asked for the hard data behind the ACR calculation and received a technical summary: with the new ACR the city’s measured usage would sit in the low‑80s percent of the applicable regulatory cap, under the 85 percent trigger associated with the 0.6 baseline. McGuire said staff had reviewed the hydraulic models and planned wells (wells 29 and 39, redrilling of well 6 and well 14) and that, with those projects, staff did not foresee the need for a citywide moratorium.
Mayor and council members discussed next steps and public process: staff will present an ordinance to extend the moratorium in the refined area at the council’s next meeting; staff said the council can further narrow or phase out the moratorium as new data arrives.
Ending
The council recessed a public hearing on the moratorium at the Aug. 13 meeting and left the matter on the agenda for further consideration. Staff emphasized that the ACR is a conditional, time‑limited allowance and urged caution to preserve the revised requirement while the city implements planned water projects and demand‑management steps.
