A West Texas ranch and resort will limit residents’ water supplies amid fears their wells could run dry – The Big Bend Sentinel
Residents of the sprawling Terlingua Ranch near Big Bend National Park must limit their water intake to 1,000 gallons of non-potable water per month.
This story was originally published on August 20 at www.texastribune.org.
ODESSA — To keep up with a growing population and increasing water demand, a popular vacation and residential complex in Terlingua told residents it would limit water sales.
The eight-member board, which manages 200,000 acres of private land and short-term rental properties called Terlingua Ranch Lodge — about 70 miles from Big Bend National Park — sells drinking and domestic water to permanent residents, many of whom rely on the association for their monthly supplies.
But starting in September, the board will for the first time reduce the amount of non-potable water residents can buy each month as well water levels begin to drop. Board members hope this will prevent them from running out of water again, as they did in 2018, when one of the ranch’s five wells dried up.
“We have created a dependency,” said Larry Sunderland, chairman of the association’s water committee, The Texas Tribune last June. Sunderland said at the time that residents should not rely on the ranch’s wells because they were not drilled to serve the ranch’s existing population and accommodate tourists.
The water shortage in this West Texas village is a microcosm of the state’s water crisis. Texas’ growing population is putting a strain on water systems and supplies, and the state is only just beginning to meet the demand. The Texas Water Development Board, which manages the state’s supply, has begun distributing $1 billion in taxpayer money for urgent projects to meet that need. In Terlingua, that’s the first step toward water conservation and the start of understanding how much water is flowing underneath.
“It’s all just guesswork right now,” Sunderland said of the amount of water coming out of the well, adding that the technology will help property owners manage their water needs by knowing how much water is available to the administration.
Fee-paying property owners can purchase a set amount of water each month. According to the association’s bylaws, they can purchase 1,000 gallons of domestic water each month. Each gallon costs 10 cents — $50 if they take the full amount. Property owners can receive up to 25 gallons of free drinking water each week. Anything beyond that costs 25 cents per gallon.
It’s unclear how much water these new limits will save. More than 5,000 people own property on the ranch, but most do not live there and the number of permanent residents changes frequently.
The ranch does not sell water to tourists. It does not impose any restrictions on tourists who rent cabins for short periods and use the water.
Further restrictions may be possible depending on water levels. The board, which owns five water wells, will begin monitoring the wells using monitoring wells.
The committee will evaluate the condition of its wells using a rating system from 0 to 4. At 0, sales are normal. At 1, the ranch will begin reducing its water sales by 20%, to 800 gallons per month. At 2, it will cut water sales by 50%. At 3, the second highest status, the committee will reduce the amount of water sold by 75%, to just 125 gallons. And at 4, the highest rating, the ranch will stop selling water altogether until the well recovers.
Scientists, regulators and local officials are just beginning to figure out how much water is underground in Terlingua. The Water Development Board does not have an accurate map of the body of water, called an aquifer, in south Brewster County, where Terlingua is located.
The devices that monitor the well’s level offer insight. Sounding tubes determine the level of a water well. When the tube reaches water, it pulses, indicating the water level, said Kevin Urbanczyk, a professor of geology at Sul Ross University and a board member of the Brewster County Groundwater Conservation District.
The Board will deploy the exploratory tube at the beginning of each month and publish the results on its website.
Urbanczyk said the wells provide limited information about the water rising to the surface. Getting comprehensive data about the water floor even deeper requires a team of scientists, engineers and funding – a time-consuming and expensive process. He said the conservation district has partnered with the ranch to study the available data. He plans to seek funding and help from the Water Development Board in the future.
“Their wells have a limited capacity and they’re trying to solve the problem with band-aids,” he said. “And given the growing population, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I think an environmentally conscious mindset is a really good step in the right direction.”
Disclosure: Sul Ross University was a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in Tribune journalism. A full List of them here.
