The Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District is set to rehear an application for water rights from Forestar Real Estate Group, a private real estate company based in Austin that has a contract in place to sell water to Hays County, on Dec. 16.

Forestar has already been granted 12,000 of the 45,000 acre-feet of water it originally requested. The company has a reservation contract in place with Hays County, and county officials have said they hope the agreement with Forestar will be part of a plan that will address the entire region's water supply issues.

At Hays County Commissioners Court Sept. 24, County Judge Bert Cobb said county officials have spent time and effort trying to convince the river authorities to secure additional water for Hays County, but they failed to act.

Bill West, general manager of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, said his organization has been working since 2004 on the Mid Basin Project, which he said will supply about 50,000 acre-feet of water to the high-growth areas around I-35 and SH 130 when it is built out. West said the GBRA is hopeful the state's newly created State Water Implementation Fund for Texas will help finance the project when the funds are dispersed in 2015.

"We're working to position ourselves on the Mid Basin Project such that when the decision-making process starts, we hope we'll be up there in consideration," West said.

A new study into the Mid Basin Project that was performed in collaboration with the Texas Water Development Board is expected to be complete by the end of 2013, West said.

"We realize that we're going to have to compete with Dallas-Fort Worth, with Houston, with San Antonio, with the [Rio Grande] Valley," West said. "The Development Board, just from pure politics, they're going to spread that money around across the state as far as they can so they can't be criticized about favoring one part of the state over the other."

Steve Box, executive director of the Bastrop-based Environmental Stewardship, called the agreement between Hays County and Forestar a "hostile action" against Bastrop and Lee counties. Box has also taken issue with Cobb's statement that 25 percent of the Simsboro Aquifer recharges each year. The actual recharge is closer to about 30,000 acre-feet per year, Box said.

Additionally, Box said the Hays region's recharge rates are actually above those within the Lost Pines region. The Lost Pines district has already determined the amount of water that can be pumped from its region, so Hays County and Forestar should accept that, he said.

"If that causes them to be short on water, then they do have more resources at their disposal [in Hays County] that they should look at with greater consideration as they go forward in their planning," he said.

Another point of contention, Box said, is the issue of drawdown—or lowering levels—of the aquifers. Box said the Lost Pines district originally requested a drawdown level of between 35 and 50 feet, but because of huge pumping already in place in the neighboring Post Oak Savannah region, its drawdown levels had to be set in a range of 7-345 feet.

"It was clear to many of us that our rural communities were being targeted for water exports to more urban growth corridors," Box said.