Despite receiving additional orders over the weekend to cut down on using water from the Edwards Aquifer, San Antonio Water System staff on Monday said customers will remain in Stage 2 watering restrictions for now.
SAWS’ decision to keep its customers under Stage 2 watering rules comes as the City Council readies to hear a briefing this week on the utility’s newly approved drought rules, which need council approval to go into effect.
Stage 2 currently limits customers to watering with an irrigation system or sprinkler only once a week from 7-11 a.m. and 7-11 p.m. The new rules may soon see SAWS change how its Stage 3 and Stage 4 watering rules are triggered, with the aim of better aligning these points with the Edwards Aquifer Authority’s pumping restriction stages. The EAA is the entity responsible for managing how much water is allowed to be pumped out of the aquifer.
In years past, SAWS aligned with the authority’s trigger points for stages 1 and 2 when it came to implementing the utility’s own drought restrictions. However, the two entities historically differed in how their Stage 3 restrictions were triggered, with SAWS being able to decide unilaterally when to start them. Since implementing the stages system more than 20 years ago, SAWS has never declared Stage 3 or Stage 4 restrictions for its customers, despite severe droughts in recent years that sent the aquifer authority into its own stages 3 and 4.
On Friday, the EAA declared an increase from Stage 3 to Stage 4 permit reductions for Edwards groundwater permit holders that draw from the San Antonio Pool, which includes SAWS. Under the EAA’s Stage 4 restrictions, water pumping from the aquifer must be cut by 40%.
The EAA’s Stage 4 pumping restrictions for San Antonio permit holders are triggered when the 10-day average of the Edwards Aquifer J-17 monitoring well drops below 630 feet or when the Comal Springs 10-day rolling average falls below 100 cubic feet per second. The springs’ average dropped to 99 cfs on Thursday, the authority said in a press release Friday, triggering the Stage 4 protocols for the San Antonio Pool.
As a permit holder, this means SAWS must reduce how much Edwards Aquifer water it uses. Edwards Aquifer water makes up roughly half of the water used by the utility, but its diversified portfolio has allowed it to keep its customers within SAWS’ Stage 2 watering rules for now, said SAWS Vice President of Communications Gavino Ramos.
Under the proposed rule changes, SAWS will mandatorily enter into its Stage 3 watering rules when the 10-day average of the Edwards Aquifer J-17 monitoring well drops below 640 feet and will implement a drought surcharge on high-use customers in Stage 3 and beyond.
“If City Council approves the new watering rules we are proposing on June 20, they will more closely mirror EAA cutback requirements,” Ramos said. “Thanks to SAWS’ diversified portfolio of water sources, we have greater flexibility in managing the effects of extended drought, but as San Antonio’s population continues to soar, it’s even more critical to preserve our main water resource — the Edwards Aquifer — for the future.”
