[polldaddy poll=9103458] Tomball and Magnolia residents are expected to continue shelling out more money on their bills as water authorities work to conserve groundwater resources. The North Harris County Regional Water Authority, which has served Tomball since 2000, met with officials about two years ago and opted to add the city to its 2025 surface water conversion plan due to its rapid growth, NHCRWA President Al Rendl said. “What we’re looking at in Tomball at this point in time is to try to get [surface] water up to them sometime around 2020-22 but before 2025,” Rendl said. “It all depends on how quickly we can get the pipes into the ground and how fast we can move. All of this is going to have a huge impact on people’s water bills.” In the Magnolia area, the Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District regulates the use of groundwater, and the San Jacinto River Authority is a sponsor of a joint groundwater reduction plan with the LSGCD. However, the city of Magnolia is not part of the initial $500 million surface water delivery plan, SJRA spokesperson Ronda Trow said. “The city of Magnolia isn’t necessarily paying for water, but you are paying for compliance because you are part of the GRP, and Magnolia is complying with the [LSGCD] mandate,” Trow said.

Tomball groundwater

As of April 2014, the NHCRWA groundwater pumpage fee for water users, including the city of Tomball, increased from $1.75 to $2 per 1,000 gallons, and the surface water delivery fee increased from $2.20 to $2.45 per 1,000 gallons. “We will be selling about $80 million dollars worth of bonds before the end of the year, and that means we will have to increase the rates or make an announcement of the increase of rates,” Rendl said. “They will probably be effective April 1, 2016.” Tomball City Manager George Shackelford said the city has paid nearly $1.4 million to date this fiscal year in NHCRWA groundwater pumpage fees. "That whole [fee] dollar amount has kind of been an ongoing struggle for years and years," he said. "The residents of Tomball have paid it and have not seen any type of [surface water] return whatsoever. It has not been a popular issue with our council."

Tomball surface water plan

As part of the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District mandate, the NHCRWA plans to reduce reliance on groundwater resources and convert to 65 percent surface water usage by 2025, Rendl said. To accomplish this mandate, the NHCRWA negotiated a deal with the city of Houston 15 years ago to purchase the rights to use up to 31 million gallons a day of surface water from the San Jacinto River, Rendl said. The city of Houston uses the other 45 million-50 million gallons a day of the 80-million-gallon daily capacity of the water treatment plant, he said. “However, there’s a problem: There’s not enough water in the San Jacinto River, which is [supplied by] Lake Conroe or Lake Houston, to be able to supply any more water to anybody anytime in the future,” Rendl said. “Because of this, we have been working with the city of Houston and the other regional water authorities to develop Luce Bayou.” In January, construction is expected to begin on the $300 million Luce Bayou project near Kingwood, of which the NHCRWA will contribute $138 million, and the other three area water authorities will finance the remaining balance of $162 million, Rendl said. The project will pull surface water from the Trinity River into the bayou to filter through Lake Houston for water users in the Greater Houston area. It will also increase the daily pumpage capacity to 450 million gallons, he said. To support the bayou, the NHCRWA will be contributing $469 million to construct a new $1.28 billion water treatment plant over the next decade with the remaining funds supplied by the other area water authorities, he said. In addition, the NHCRWA, which supplies surface water to 60 municipal utility districts, will need to supply pipelines to an 80 additional MUDs at a cost of $635 million. “If you look at all of that, it comes to about $1.4 billion we’re going to be faced with in addition to the $460 million-$470 million we currently have [in] outstanding [bonds],” Rendl said. “This is going to be, by 2025, a $2 billion dollar project for the water authority.”

“If you look at all of that, it comes to about $1.4 billion we’re going to be faced with in addition to the $460 million-$470 million we currently have [in] outstanding [bonds]. This is going to be, by 2025, a $2 billion dollar project for the water authority.” —Al Rendl, North Harris County Regional Water Authority president

Once the first phase of the Luce Bayou project is operational in 2021, the NHCRWA will have enough water capacity to deliver surface water to the growing Tomball area by 2025, Rendl said.

Magnolia groundwater

During a Sept. 8 Magnolia town hall meeting, residents packed the council chambers to discuss the regulation of groundwater in Montgomery County by the LSGCD and express concerns about rising water bills. Some residents in neighborhoods, such as Thousand Oaks and Mostyn Manor, said they saw a significant jump in their water gallon usage in August, which totaled anywhere from 79,000 to 189,000 gallons. The increased indicated usage caused some water bills to surge between $500 and $1,100. T&W Water Service President Ron Payne said the substantial increase in water bills for Thousand Oaks residents is largely due to individual increases in water usage during the summer months. Payne said he advises residents to frequently monitor their water meters each month. As of Sept. 1, the SJRA GRP increased its groundwater pumpage fee from $2.25 to $2.32 per 1,000 gallons. The city of Magnolia, Quadvest, T&W Water Service and several other Montgomery County water providers are participants in the SJRA’s GRP, Magnolia Mayor Todd Kana said. In compliance with LSGCD mandates, the SJRA GRP uses fees to fund the cost of the $500 million pipeline project to deliver surface water from Lake Conroe to The Woodlands, the cities of Oak Ridge North and Conroe and other local municipal utility districts. “Paying $2.32 per 1,000 gallons to pump, even though we are not expected to ever drink [the surface water], is still cheaper than if the city of Magnolia sold enough bonds to dig a lake and a treatment plant for our 2,000 people,” Kana said. Each water provider is permitted to tack on additional cents in an SJRA pass-through fee to customers to provide for water pipeline breaks and flushes, Magnolia City Administrator Paul Mendes said. “Right now the city of Magnolia has collected $229,000 [in total water fees this year], and we’ve sent the SJRA $309,000, so we are falling behind,” Mendes said. “Today, we’re about $80,000 in the hole from what we’ve collected to what we have to pay the SJRA. I think this is the first time that we are actually not making money on the water system because of these additional fees.” With several entities converting to surface water, the city of Magnolia and other smaller users will continue using groundwater and help meet the LSGCD’s 2008 mandate to reduce groundwater use countywide by 30 percent by 2016, Kana said.

Groundwater dispute

In addition to the 30 percent mandate, the LSGCD is mandating a cap Jan. 1, 2016, on groundwater use to no more than 64,000 acre-feet per year based on its studies. On Sept. 8, Magnolia City Council voted to support a petition disputing the 64,000-acre-feet mandate. In addition, the city of Magnolia expressed support Sept. 8 for the city of Conroe's Aug. 27 decision to pursue litigation against the LSGCD. Quadvest hired a hydrologist earlier this year to conduct an independent study that is nearing completion to determine the level of groundwater available to the county, President Simon Sequeira said. Sequeira said he and several other Montgomery County entities believe 99 percent of all groundwater underneath the county in the year 1900 is still available. “My customers and I have paid the SJRA and conservation district over $7 million to date,” Sequeira said. “We have not received one drop of [surface] water. If we had a water problem [the SJRA GRP] would be the best plan available, but we don’t have a water problem.” While SJRA GRP fees continue to increase, Mendes said the city of Magnolia is struggling to find ways to conserve water for its estimated 2,000 residents “We have to reduce our water consumption by about one-third,” Mendes said. “With the increased cost of water to our citizens, it is basically forcing conservation for many families on a fixed income. We’ve also got construction right on the horizon, which is probably going to quadruple the number of homes in this area requesting water supply from us.”