A Montessori school in Buda is setting its sights on becoming the first non-bottling facility in the state to use rainwater as its drinking supply.

Ladybird Montessori School, which opened in November, provides education to students ages 18 months to 6 years old. Husband and wife Justin and Niki Foster, who own the school, eventually hope to expand to offer education to middle school students. By the time they open their doors to teenagers, they hope to have authorization to use a rainwater collection system.

"We are glad to be on the forefront and trailblazing to be the first small business in Texas to take on rainwater collection systems," Justin Foster said.

The Fosters spent about $50,000 on engineering costs, concrete and construction for its storage tanks—a 24,000-gallon primary storage tank and a 2,500-gallon tank that will hold water ready for drinking.

But the small business is only in the preliminary stages of receiving permission from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which oversees entities supplying water to the public.

The TCEQ has authorized three public water systems in the state to use rainwater as their source for drinking water. All are water-bottling companies, TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.

The Fosters have yet to submit paperwork to use rainwater as a drinking water source for their school but plan to do so by the fall, they said. Justin Foster said he is expecting the agency to take about six months to review the application.

By spring 2015, they hope to have their rainwater collection system up and running. In the meantime, the school is hauling water in, which has proved costly, the Fosters said.

Their model of self-sustainability and energy autonomy includes not only plans to harvest natural resources for energy but also to teach the students of the school about the preciousness of these resources.

In addition to making rainwater potable, the Fosters plan to use solar panels to power their facility and to sow crops in a planned community garden.

"We want this to be a kind of community think-tank, and we are willing to be the experimenters," Niki Foster said. "Come to us with ideas, and if we think we can take it on let's try it."

John Dupnik, general manager of the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, said economics are likely to be the driver if rainwater collection, at commercial or residential sites, is ever to proliferate.

Conservation efforts in Hays County have included consideration in a January Commissioners Court meeting of a loan initiative that would create a $100,000 fund from which residents could borrow in order to install rainwater collection systems.

Dupnik said capturing rainwater and making it potable is the next logical step in addressing Central Texas' water concerns.

"Rainwater harvesting is not a new concept; it's as old as time," he said. "The difference is that people are recognizing where they are in an area of scarce water supplies."

If successful, the Fosters will provide not only a blueprint for other Montessori schools in the region, as is their hope, but also for businesses in general, Dupnik said.

"It's a very interesting prospect that perhaps could be a model for others to follow going forward," he said.