[NA]Texas water pumping controls[NA]

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

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Dave Taylor
Another google fail:

Does a Texas water board or other entity have the power to limit water pumped from a private (res or comm) well?
 
Not just TX, but every state I know of west of the MS. NM has limits, CO has limits, AZ, and CA that I'm aware of. Pretty sure all of them.

My NM prop with a res well is restricted to 1 acre foot. In CO, not only are private wells restricted, but surface water(rain) is restricted in most cases to no capture, tankage, diversion except for your typical gutters that move water to a down spout.
 
I own property in NM. My well is not restricted. I also capture rain water for the garden in plastic 55 gallon drums with no restrictions.

Possibly your restrictions are local and not state.
 
Zeldman said:
I own property in NM. My well is not restricted. I also capture rain water for the garden in plastic 55 gallon drums with no restrictions.

Possibly your restrictions are local and not state.
Click to expand...

Sorry;

72-12-1.1. Underground waters; domestic use; permit. A person, firm or corporation desiring to use public underground waters described in this section for irrigation of not to exceed one acre of noncommercial trees, lawn or garden or for household or other domestic use shall make application to the state engineer for a well on a form to be prescribed by the state engineer. Upon the filing of each application describing the use applied for, the state engineer shall issue a permit to the applicant to use the underground waters applied for; provided that permits for domestic water use within municipalities shall be conditioned to require the permittee to comply with all applicable municipal ordinances enacted pursuant to Chapter 3, Article 53 NMSA 1978.

If you would like to bring your well into compliance, here's where to start;

http://www.ose.state.nm.us/WR/forms.php

Nice folk, helped me out with my issue.

Has been required since 1972. That's not to say there aren't hundreds of unpermitted wells in the state, just that it's a requirement. I personally know of 3 unpermitted wells in NM, one in Jemez mtns, one in Timberon, and one near me up in Taos.

<edit; now I know of 4 unpermitted wells.>
 
docmirror said:
Not just TX, but every state I know of west of the MS. NM has limits, CO has limits, AZ, and CA that I'm aware of. Pretty sure all of them.



My NM prop with a res well is restricted to 1 acre foot. In CO, not only are private wells restricted, but surface water(rain) is restricted in most cases to no capture, tankage, diversion except for your typical gutters that move water to a down spout.
Click to expand...


Not quite accurate for Colorado. My well is "unregulated" and legally has no pumping limits but I can only irrigate a specific sized portion of my land with it. No mention in my permit of how much I can irrigate said portion.

However, the well also came with no directly documented water rights. To retain rights beyond what the permit states (Denver Aquifer), one must file with the appropriate water district claiming those rights to all aquifers beneath the property. (Denver, Arapahoe, and I forget the deep one...)

We are in a district that falls to the State water engineering office, while neighbors in the same subdivision slightly west are inside a true "Water Court" district. If they file, they go or send a representative to a true water court. We simply send paperwork to the State Engineer and wait.

Which... We've done. Through a water rights attorney who gathered all those who wanted to claim water rights and "pooled" (no pun intended) wells within a circular area that touch into joint claims (called a well field) to give them larger clout in future water battles within the three Aquifers (which are all non-replenishable and were permitted based on 100 years of use, and it looks like the law will change soon to 200 or more years). Jointly this will give the neighbors the legal right and option to drill past Denver and down into Arapahoe (deeper and much bigger) if necessary to service the water rights of the adjoining property owners. It also blocks municipalities from pumping that water out of Arapahoe and/or getting permits to do so in the future, as well as political clout when a single representative can speak for the joint water rights as a whole if retained by the property owners.

Total cost to file: $145 Well (again no pun intended) worth it.

Water rights are a Big Deal(TM) in Colorado.

I can't even add a second entrance road to my property without a variance from the County which includes proving that the road won't trap any groundwater or not allow it to flow freely across the property. All roads are required to have appropriate culverts to allow unimpeded water flow across the private property. The groundwater rights aren't mine. Only the subterranean aquifers below the property as originally allowed and permitted by the residential unrestricted well.

Most NEW well permits now specify a specific number of acre-feet and require a certified meter be installed and maintained. It's rare anyone will attempt to read said meter unless a complaint is made, however. And whoever drilled my well installed a meter even though it wasn't required. It's in my basement near the pressure tank. For me, it's mostly a tool to know nothing is leaking. If everything is off and it's moving, I have a problem to go find.
 
denverpilot said:
Not quite accurate for Colorado. My well is "unregulated" and legally has no pumping limits but I can only irrigate a specific sized portion of my land with it. No mention in my permit of how much I can irrigate said portion.
Click to expand...

Thanks for correcting. Some parts of CO must have grandfathered water rights. It's a pretty big issues there.

In my place in NM, I am limited by the permit but not required to install a meter, nor do I have to keep a water use log. Wells withing certain urban, suburb areas have either a meter, or they are required to maintain a monthly log.

Back to TX, wells are permitted and regulated, but there are prolly hundreds of unpermitted wells in the state. Particularly in SW TX along the Rio Grande drainage plate.
 
Last edited:
docmirror said:
Thanks for correcting. Some parts of CO must have grandfathered water rights. It's a pretty big issues there.
Click to expand...

Fer-sure-and-fer-certain grandfathered. That's at the heart of water law out here. Being Senior is where it is at.

Domestic use wells are/were pretty much automatic permits but not a drop of water is allowed outside. Homeowner groups can get together and permit outside use but ya gotta get hydrologists and lawyers involved.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Another google fail:

Does a Texas water board or other entity have the power to limit water pumped from a private (res or comm) well?
Click to expand...

Pretty sure yes, but I'm not sure on enforcement as the irrigation region we used was a flood system fed by a lake and irrigation supply regulated by the Wichita Valley Water District supplying water to the main aqueducts. I worked a couple pivot fields that pulled from a well, but don't know how or if it was regulated.
 
Clark1961 said:
Fer-sure-and-fer-certain grandfathered. That's at the heart of water law out here. Being Senior is where it is at.

Domestic use wells are/were pretty much automatic permits but not a drop of water is allowed outside. Homeowner groups can get together and permit outside use but ya gotta get hydrologists and lawyers involved.
Click to expand...

That was my permit up in Evergreen. Domestic meant inside only. I used it in the garage, and for cleaning cars a little, but I knew it was domestic use only permit. Some places are different, maybe less restrictive.
 
Yeah mine is domestic use but allows roughly one acre (it's more accurate than that and is in square feet) to be "irrigated" out of four.

The "why", is that they expected folks out here to have a small lawn (of ridiculous Kentucky bluegrass) around the houses.

Of course maybe only one in twenty do, most of us just keep the prairie grasses and weeds, and new wells aren't permitted the same way as the old permits were.

But they're transferable, so as long as the well works and doesn't have some sort of structural failure, the grandfathered permits are essentially "forever". Just file a change of ownership.

The rights issue is in case the well ever has to be redrilled and for some odd reason you can't hit the original higher Denver Aquifer. You have the (very expensive) option of just going all the way down to Arapahoe if you have the water rights filed. If you don't, you can usually just drill a new well somewhere else on the property to hit Denver.

Haven't heard of anyone drilling a dry hole out here looking for Denver yet, but I'm sure it happens occasionally.

Hmm. Interesting. Just went and read the lawyer's wording for use in the new "well field" that includes ten lots that are adjacent (40 acres)...

"Use of Ground Water:
To be used, reused, and successively used for domestic, including inhouse use, irrigation, commercial, industrial, fire protection, stockwatering, and augmentation and replacement."

That's pretty open considering the original well permit isn't that open.

Must be lawyerese for "whatever we can get". Ha.

Ah geeze all this fun made me go pull the permit out of the files...

Ahh yeah, 1/2 an acre of irrigation (20,000 sq ft) not an acre, and usage just says "domestic". 500' well, perforated from 460 to 520 (haha... Hard to be 500' when its perforated to 520, eh? Sloppy.) and static water level is 260'.

Fascinating reading since I now see that the house was here long before the well. That's very odd. But this place has an odd history anyway. And it's an odd house.

That or a previous well failed, but I've seen no evidence of one in paperwork, nor during having the locator out for other digging.

Anyway always fun to do through the water file. I hadn't even read the lawyer's stuff completely through and missed that change in usage. It may be that the usage of the well itself trumps the rights determination, or that somebody has a well in the "field" that has additional rights.

The paperwork sure keeps a lot of people employed out here. In the end, it's all about just being able to start the fight if someone decides the larger municipalities need more more more for the millions moving here. It won't really stop them. Just slow them down.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Another google fail:

Does a Texas water board or other entity have the power to limit water pumped from a private (res or comm) well?
Click to expand...

I recently read a story about a former (turn-of-the-century era) mineral bath spa and resort in San Antonio that had an artesian well that tapped into the Edwards aquifer Long after the baths had fallen into ruins, the well was still allowing water to flow. Only within the last decade or two did the well finally get capped.

The article was talking about how such a free-flowing well from the aquifer would be illegal today, since wells into the aquifer are now regulated and water users have to purchase permits; the flow rates that this place once used would make duplicating the original resort today essentially a non-starter from a business perspective.
 
There are many people in my Oklahoma neighborhood (including myself) who have water wells. I'm not aware of anyone who inspects them, much less monitors usage. You'd have no way to tell as none of them have water meters attached to them. Mine is used solely for watering the lawn, but we haven't had to use it at all this year. I'd be surprised in non-commercial water wells were regulated in Oklahoma.
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah mine is domestic use but allows roughly one acre (it's more accurate than that and is in square feet) to be "irrigated" out of four.

Ah geeze all this fun made me go pull the permit out of the files...

Ahh yeah, 1/2 an acre of irrigation (20,000 sq ft) not an acre, and usage just says "domestic". 500' well, perforated from 460 to 520 (haha... Hard to be 500' when its perforated to 520, eh? Sloppy.) and static water level is 260'.

Fascinating reading since I now see that the house was here long before the well. That's very odd. But this place has an odd history anyway. And it's an odd house.
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't mean to make you go digging, as it were. :D

So, your well is actually limited, just like in NM and TX, but the wording is a bit different. Trust me, if you start growing and watering corn, the water police will show up in a jiffy. Your neighbors will call them eventually, or they'll show up on their own.

As for the well, I learned a lot in the past few months on water wells. Quite often, the driller will drill well past the water table. So the bore shaft is drilled to 520', but the casing they put in may be down to 520 or as short as 480' which is within spec for a 500' well.

Many houses in CO just like in NM were surface water, and cistern use before wells. Rain and snow-melt were sources in spring and part of summer, then water delivery starting in Oct through Mar. Still done in many parts of NM where water is either delivered by truck, or the owner has a big trailer and they go get it themselves and then pump it into the underground cistern.
 
Jim_R said:
I recently read a story about a former (turn-of-the-century era) mineral bath spa and resort in San Antonio that had an artesian well that tapped into the Edwards aquifer Long after the baths had fallen into ruins, the well was still allowing water to flow. Only within the last decade or two did the well finally get capped.

The article was talking about how such a free-flowing well from the aquifer would be illegal today, since wells into the aquifer are now regulated and water users have to purchase permits; the flow rates that this place once used would make duplicating the original resort today essentially a non-starter from a business perspective.
Click to expand...

Mineral Wells to the west of me at one time was famous for their 'healing soothing bath waters'. Come to find out, that the water coming out was liberally mixed with Lithium by nature. So - sure it was soothing, Lithium is the primary element in many mood altering drugs. You can still by Mineral Wells spring water, but the Lithium content has to be regulated or it becomes a perscription drug.

Costly, but I like it: http://drinkcrazywater.com/cw/
 
Water rights in California are specific to surface water. The rule (prior to AB2020) is that there are no groundwater rights per se, but the right to use the groundwater comes with the land.

The local groundwater management districts do not allocate groundwater extraction between users, but they can limit and/or tax extraction.
 
I still don't know; can the water police deny you the ability to pump water from your own well, or can they tell you how much you may pump in Texas?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I still don't know; can the water police deny you the ability to pump water from your own well, or can they tell you how much you may pump in Texas?
Click to expand...

You're going to have to research the policy in force by the local jurisdictional entity, if any, that exercises control over your groundwater. The link I posted should give you a good starting point. My guess is if your groundwater is regulated, you would know about it by now.
 
There is a company moving into the area who is planning to pump....all of it out of the ground and we just wonder if the Water District has any authority or do they have more of a monitoring function than policing function.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
There is a company moving into the area who is planning to pump....all of it out of the ground and we just wonder if the Water District has any authority or do they have more of a monitoring function than policing function.
Click to expand...

You need to go to your water board and ask for clarification. Nestle is making a fortune selling US water to China.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
There is a company moving into the area who is planning to pump....all of it out of the ground and we just wonder if the Water District has any authority or do they have more of a monitoring function than policing function.
Click to expand...

Dave - c'mon, we don't know what your GCD is, so no one can tell you specifics. There's a link in the second post that has a lot of detail. Find out what district you're in and contact them direct. Some places yes, some no, some maybe.
 
docmirror said:
Sorry;

72-12-1.1. Underground waters; domestic use; permit. A person, firm or corporation desiring to use public underground waters described in this section for irrigation of not to exceed one acre of noncommercial trees, lawn or garden or for household or other domestic use shall make application to the state engineer for a well on a form to be prescribed by the state engineer. Upon the filing of each application describing the use applied for, the state engineer shall issue a permit to the applicant to use the underground waters applied for; provided that permits for domestic water use within municipalities shall be conditioned to require the permittee to comply with all applicable municipal ordinances enacted pursuant to Chapter 3, Article 53 NMSA 1978.

If you would like to bring your well into compliance, here's where to start;

http://www.ose.state.nm.us/WR/forms.php

Nice folk, helped me out with my issue.

Has been required since 1972. That's not to say there aren't hundreds of unpermitted wells in the state, just that it's a requirement. I personally know of 3 unpermitted wells in NM, one in Jemez mtns, one in Timberon, and one near me up in Taos.

<edit; now I know of 4 unpermitted wells.>
Click to expand...

Ok, misunderstood. I thought we were talking about a permit that restricts water usage.

I do have a permit allowing a well on my property. But nowhere in the wording does it restrict the amount of water I can use and there is no meter showing how much I use.

My wife does a vegetable garden and waters every morning and evening as do others living on the same road. No water police here.

I live in McKinley county where it is a lot more desolate than your area. And I only have one tree to water.....plus a lot of rocks.
 
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