The program has protected about a quarter of the approximately 500,000 acres of recharge zone that directly benefits the San Antonio area.
Charles Crawford, Edwards Aquifer Authority Data Collection Supervisor, prepares Wednesday, March 30, 2022 to measure the water level of an EAA well at the authorityÕs Field Research Park in far north San Antonio.
Once a month EAA employees manually check water levels in their monitor wells throughout the region to confirm the accuracy of automated data generated every 15 minutes by sensors at the wells.San Antonio added about 400 acres to land it safeguards under the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program, boosting the total protected acreage to just over 178,000. The aquifer is San Antonio’s main source of water. The program has protected that critical resource since 2000 by purchasing conservation easements that keep development and pollution off land that feeds into and refills the aquifer. The purchases essentially mean that the city owns the development rights of a property but allows the owner to keep their land. This newest conservation easement that City Council approved Thursday for Morrow Ranch in Uvalde County is important for the program, said Phillip Covington, manager of the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. It’s in a “very high development pressure area” just south of Concan. “There’s lots of interest in creating resorts and recreational facilities for tubing and camping,” he said. “So this is an opportunity to protect a very sensitive area of the recharge zone that ultimately benefits the city of San Antonio’s water quality and quantity through recharge.”But the way the city funds such purchases is shifting this year. The Frio River flows through the Annandale Ranch in Sabinal, Texas, on Feb. 14, 2020. The Edwards Aquifer Protection Program has spent more than $260 million in sales tax funds since 2000 to acquire about 160,000 acres of sensitive land over the aquifer. Sitting above the aquifer, the Annandale Ranch has been in Bill Cofer's family for 130 years and in 2007, the San Antonio Water System bought a 7,553-acre conservation easement on the ranch- one of the last easements purchased by SAWS before the EAPP took over.Buying the conservation easement to Morrow Ranch cost about $854,000, using most of the final dollars saved from a 1/8-cent sales tax collection that had been repeatedly approved by voters since 2000.
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