Caution Not Optimism about Future Water Supply for El Paso

At their 9/12/12 meeting, the Public Service Board heard from Dr. Bill Hutchison about the current and future availability of water in the EPWU service area. Chris Roberts' summary of that report was published in yesterday's El Paso Times. (Be sure to read the online comments.) The Times editorial board offered their opinion today: Water: Ahead of 'savings' game. 

Question is: Are we really ahead of the 'savings' game?

In an email to Roberts shared with elpasonaturally (with permission to publish), PSB member, Dr. Rick Bonart, offers this bit of cold water in the face: 

Chris,

I think you missed a couple of key points from Hutchinson's presentation.

1. Importation of water isn't a done deal. Texas legislature and courts haven't completely resolved the issue. As he stated ( and referenced in his book) our 50 year water plan is subordinate to water district  management. They will determine the number of wells and the amount of water that can be pumped.  As a policy maker it makes me uncomfortable not to be in complete control here.

2. There is an ecosystem that exists between the river, the fresh water in the bolsons, and the brackish water. Over pumping the bolsons has drawn brackish water into some fresh water wells by the airport and taken them out of production. You correctly reported the brackish wells along loop 375 have dual purpose: to provide water for the desal plant and to help intercept the flow of salt in order to protect the  fresh water  wells. That is theory. Furthermore, from his book . . . it’s not clear what effect  wholesale  pumping of brackish water has on aquifer recharge. Will industrial scale pumping slow aquifer recharge? It's all interconnected. During  the PSB strategic planning session last year we agreed to do a chloride or solute model to (as proposed in his book) to investigate.  Results????

3. The 50 year plan calls for 28k acre feet of reclaimed water use per year. That's extreme. The cost of production and distribution are off the chart. Malcom Pirnie gave a presentation the same day as Hutchinson. They came up with an effluent to potable water reuse for  11k acre feet of water at Bustamante. The cost is $11M/ year. This translates to $22 / CCF. Well water by comparison is about 37 cents.

4. You are correct the economics of water will be a limiting factor before we run dry. We have more land than water. Where we develop and how much we develop needs to be addressed in a water use budget. The 50 year water plan details how much water we get for municipal use. It doesn't detail how we use it. When you talk about smart homes and reducing per capita water use below certain levels there is a point of diminishing returns. When people use too little, the utility has to raise prices to keep revenues up to pay for the system. The notion that conservation will stave off water shortage is correct, but forcing people to third world level water restrictions while incurring  higher costs for water will negatively impact our ability to attract industry as well as people’s desire to live here.

5. Last year we used 114k acre feet of water. The 50 year plan estimates we have about 140k acre feet locally. That's 26k to spare at the regions current population. At 130gal/person/ day each 5%  addition to the region’ s population requires an additional 5 k acre feet. So we can add about 175,000 more people by my calculation to importation. That's not a long way off.  

We're all in this together, it's not enough to just plan for how much water we can get, but how we will use it. Sustainable low cost water will be the economic and life  sustaining common denominator for our region.

Rick Bonart

By the way, here is the slide show from Hutchison's presentation to the PSB:

El Paso Municipal Water Supply: Availability, Development and Management

Click on title or icon on bottom right corner to enlarge.