With no funding, no staff and a board of temporary directors, the Southwestern Travis County Groundwater Conservation District is up and running. The body was created with the intent of monitoring and protecting the area’s supply of groundwater, but it must receive voter approval before it can fully perform its functions.
State Rep. Paul Workman (R-Austin) tried to pass a bill in the last legislative session that would create a groundwater conservation district in the last portion of the Hill Country Priority Groundwater Management Area that doesn’t have its own district. His bill, House Bill 922, didn’t quite make it through the legislative session, but much of the language from that bill got tacked onto the end of an unrelated bill that did pass: House Bill 4345.
“According to statute … we must have a groundwater conservation district,” Workman said at the district’s first board meeting on Jan. 31. “We’re finally across the finish line … the purpose of a groundwater conservation district is to manage groundwater and the aquifers.” Read more from statesman.com