SAWS Wins Battle to Control Wastewater It Releases Into San Antonio River

NOTE: this article was originally published to ExpressNews.comon May 23, 2024. It was written by Liz Teitz. Feature photo is by Sam Owens, San Antonio Express-New 

State regulators ruled that the utility can retain ownership of the water after it leaves SAWS’ treatment plants.

After a decade-long legal battle, the San Antonio Water System has won the right to control the treated wastewater it puts into the San Antonio River, without needing to add protections for other downstream water users.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality ruled Wednesday to approve a permit allowing the utility to divert and reuse its effluent, over objections from the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and Union Carbide Corp., which have downstream water rights.

The utility discharges treated wastewater from its three plants into creeks and rivers that flow into the San Antonio River, which then runs toward the Gulf Coast and meets the Guadalupe River and discharges into San Antonio Bay. Prior to this week’s ruling, when the treated water left SAWS’ treatment plants, it became classified as surface water, which made it the property of the state. That allowed others with water rights to withdraw the water from the river and use it.

The permit instead allows SAWS to dictate how it is used, a move the utility says will enable it to ensure that at least 50,000 acre-feet reach the coast, bringing ecological benefits downstream. One acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre in 1 foot of water, or about 326,000 gallons.

As San Antonio grows, the utility is treating an increasing amount of wastewater, and the ruling gives it more control over how it handles that water. The ruling gives SAWS the option to divert it from the Guadalupe River “for municipal, agricultural, industrial, mining and instream purposes in Bexar, Calhoun, Goliad, Karnes, Refugio, Victoria and Wilson counties.”

“It’s the confirmation that the investments that our ratepayers make in the water that we acquire for them, which is mostly groundwater, is still owned after they’re done using it and after we’re done treating it,” said SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente, who has led the utility since 2008 and has been working on the issue since he was a state legislator from 1991 to 2008. “The big issue for us is that privately owned groundwater stays privately owned groundwater, even after it goes through retail sale, collection and treatment.”

SAWS, which is owned by the city of San Antonio, serves about 500,000 customers.

During a meeting Wednesday, commissioners verbally approved the permit without requiring any additional conditions to protect GBRA’s or Union Carbide’s water rights. Once the written permit is issued, opponents will have the chance to challenge it by appealing for a rehearing or through district courts before it takes effect. TCEQ manages enforcement of water permits through its watermaster program, which is tasked with monitoring discharges and withdrawals from the river.

The fight over the water has been going on for more than a decade. In 2013, SAWS filed an application for a “bed and banks” permit, allowing it to use the bed and banks of the river and its tributaries to transport water. It’s an unusual use for this kind of permit, which is more often used in moving water for irrigation.

GBRA, which regulates water in the Guadalupe River basin and provides water and wastewater services in 10 counties, opposed SAWS’ application. So did Union Carbide Corp., a subsidiary of Dow Chemical, which also holds water rights in the Guadalupe River basin and uses that water at its facility in Seadrift, southeast of Victoria. The company has more than 1,200 employees at that site, manufacturing plastics and chemicals for consumer products, according to Dow’s website.

GBRA and Union Carbide argued that SAWS has been putting the water into the river for decades, so the treated wastewater was factored into their own water permits, and they would be harmed if SAWS was allowed to divert it now. GBRA provides water to municipal, industrial and agricultural customers, ranging from petrochemical facilities to rice irrigation.

Tim Finley, a Dow Chemical expert, told state administrative law judges that the Seadrift facility would have to shut without a reliable water supply, and that even a 1% impact on its water rights “could mean several days a year that the Seadrift facility is without water.” Shutting the plant for one day would cost about $1 million, he said.

In a proposed decision in November, two administrative law judges agreed with the opponents and recommended that the permit be approved with special conditions added to protect their water rights.

The three TCEQ commissioners disagreed this week and said the opponents’ rights were not determined based on the availability of SAWS’ discharges, so the permit did not need additional protections for them.

Jennifer Windscheffel, senior corporate counsel for SAWS, said the permit is the first of this magnitude.

In a written statement Thursday, the GBRA said it is considering all options to address the decision, including a judicial appeal. The authority said the ruling threatens the water supply for its customers.

“The TCEQ ruling is disappointing because it disregards the record evidence and relevant law, undermining the reliability of GBRA’s senior water rights in the lower basin and, ultimately, the water for GBRA’s customers, which include small and medium-sized municipalities,” outside counsel Samia Broadaway said. “This decision rewrites Texas law, including the Legislature’s decision on a 1997 statute, and threatens to have a ripple effect throughout the entire Guadalupe-San Antonio basin and beyond.”

Union Carbide did not respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.

The permit will allow SAWS to control almost 261,000 acre-feet of treated wastewater, which is the maximum amount its treatment plants are permitted to produce. The utility currently produces about 140,000 acre-feet of effluent per year, but the additional capacity allows for growth, SAWS senior analyst Greg Eckhardt said.

SAWS provides some of that effluent to CPS Energy, the city-owned power utility, which uses it for cooling, and sells the recycled water to customers including the city, Microsoft and Toyota.

After those allocations, SAWS has about 50,000 acre-feet available each year, which it has committed to putting into the river system and, under the new permit, ensuring it flows all the way to the coast.

That’s enough to ensure water continues flowing in the river even in the worst of a drought of record, said Donovan Burton, SAWS’ senior vice president of water resources and governmental relations. Without SAWS’ discharges, modeling calculations indicate there would be no water in the river when conditions matched those seen in the worst year of the worst recorded drought, he said.

Eckhardt said there are also options to make changes that could divert more freshwater to the Guadalupe River delta to increase freshwater flow and nutrients, or other benefits downstream.

“What this is about,” he said, “is maintaining the biological integrity of the river system.”