Eagle's Bluff responds to groundwater group's rules
By Lori Mellinger
Prior to the meeting, President Sue Harris was ready to go full force against Eagle's Bluff Country Club for alleged violations.

"There are no excuses for this," she said. "It's not agriculture and they don't get treated the same."

But after the meeting was called into session, things got much friendlier.

Harris is president of the Neches and Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation board, and it's been their mission - since last November - to get country clubs in their service areas to comply with their rules.

And it all comes down to water.

"Wells on golf courses are commercial wells," said NTVGC general manager Roy Rodgers.

In the case of groundwater districts - created across the state in 2002 - agriculture is the only exemption for some of the rules the clubs allegedly violated.

"They are not exempt wells," Rodgers said at the November meeting. "They have to meter and report their pumpage, and they have to pay three cents per thousand on all their water pump."

"None of the golf courses have filed for an operating permit; none of them were reporting their pumping - so none of them were in compliance with our rules."

According to the board, Eagle's Bluff failed to obtain well permits, failed to report quarterly production and failed to pay production fees.

Eagle's Bluff brought attorney David Bush with them. The group fully expected a suit to be filed, and Harris as much as admitted the board was ready to proceed with legal proceedings prior to the meeting.

"We have no desire - no intent - to violate any regulations, " Bush said. "I've been spending quite a bit of time educating myself about your regulations."

The country club has been open since 1999 - eight years before the conservation group was formed.

"We ask the district to postpone any legal proceedings and allow us to work through these issues," Bush said. "We are willing to comply, move forward and put this behind us."

Harris said the intent was never to penalize but to bring into compliance the country clubs that were not operating under the district's guidelines.

NTVGCD's attorney John Stover said sometimes it takes time to get people's attention.

"They've hired an attorney and that's indicative of their seriousness."

The group voted to table the issue until the district's next meeting.

In November, representatives from many area golf courses were on hand to defend their stance on alleged violations of district rules.

Echo Creek Golf Club, Athens Country Club, Pine Dunes Golf Club and Kevin L. Beard were all cited for violations. Rodgers said other local golf courses are being identified and will be dealt with similarly.

"The board voted to assess them minimum penalties of $120 per well, if they file for operating permits and do all their paperwork by Nov. 30," Rodgers said.

"If they don't have that done by Nov. 30, then the board authorized our attorney to file the violations in court. Under our current rules, the penalty assessed if taken to court would be $9,940."

He said the rules alleged being violated by the golf courses have been on the books for years, but the district is finally getting organized enough to begin enforcing them.

"We changed staff, and I'm going through the records and cleaning them up.

He said he was finding things that should have already been done, but it's now the courses that have to pay the price.

"Now we are going through and getting things rolling, and we are penalizing violators we are setting up monitoring wells," Rodgers said.

According to district rules certain wells are exempt from the district's regulations. All domestic or agriculture wells not capable of producing more than 25,000 gallons a day are considered exempt.

Any well capable of pumping more than 25,000 gallons a day, regardless of what it is actually pumping, is not exempt. Non-exempt wells that pump more than 100,000 gallons a day are subject to additional fees.

The district is currently busy preparing to conduct an in-depth groundwater study of the area for use in future water plans.

Seven years after being approved by voters in three counties, the Neches and

Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District continues to impact those

counties it serves.

The district was formed after voters in Anderson, Henderson and Cherokee

counties approved its conception in the November 2002 election. Its mission

is to conserve, preserve and regulate the Carrizo- Wilcox groundwater

aquifer, which stretches through East Texas.

"The water table in this area has decreased since the 1970s," said NTVGCD

Rodgers, "mostly because of the extreme population growth this area has experienced in that time. There was no regulation standard then.

"We had people putting in septic systems within 50-feet of a well.

"That's simply unacceptable. We're hoping some of our requirements will prevent that, and protect our water source for the future.

"The population is only going to grow with time."

The district's directors have been working out the district's requirements and regulations since January 2003.

Some of those rules include:

! the registration of existing wells;

! implementing production fees ($0.03 cents per thousand gallons) and transfer fees ($0.015 cents per thousand gallons) on commercial wells only,

! which include municipalities and other water cooperatives; and

! requiring permits to drill new wells and operate any new non-exempt well within the district.

"We do not meter private wells," Rodgers said. "We have no plans to meter private wells."

Former district manager Janet Blakeney recommended every well be registered with the district, and registration fees are refundable.

"We can't protect a well if we don't know it's there," she said.

The groundwater conservation district still has much work ahead of it as changing state legislation begins to impact the natures of groundwater conservation districts in the future.

"Most of recent groundwater district legislation is targeting districts in West Texas, where there's not a lot of water, obviously," former state representative and Texas lobbyist Cliff Johnson, of Palestine, told district directors.

"Rules set for that area might not work for areas with an abundance of water, like we have.

"We want to make sure we're all on the same page here.

"The district should be the rifle over the fireplace -- make sure the aquifer is not mined but used soundly."

Harris, of Elkhart, admits she's sometimes at a loss as to where her district stands on certain bills coming out of Austin, but she agreed with Johnson's euphemism.

"We have rules," she said, "but we're not going to govern until government is needed, to make sure our water cannot be stolen."

The NTVGCD meets at 3 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at their offices at 212 S. Main St. in Jacksonville.