Mark your calendar: Hearing on LCRA’s Application for Groundwater Permit. October 15-18 and 21-22 at 10:00AM, Bastrop Convention Center, Bastrop, Texas.
We’ve been busy preparing for the Contested Case Hearing on LCRA’s application to pump 25,000 acre-feet of groundwater per year from Bastrop County.
Yes, we have been missing in your inbox for months now while we have been preparing for the contested case hearing. Environmental Stewardship (ES), Grissom Landowners, Aqua WSC, City of Elgin, Recharge Water LLC, and Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District will present their cases at the hearing that will be held in the Bastrop Convention Center. More on the location and time will be provided when we have the specifics.
Preparations for the hearing have been grueling, time consuming and expensive. ES has been gathering the scientific information and compiling it into testimonies by our expert witnesses: George Rice and Joe Trungale. All of the testimonies and other official documents can be found on the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) website, Docket Number 952-19-0705 here (click on “Public Case File Search” and put in the docket number.).
If you go to the SOAH website you can identify ES documents by looking in the far right column for E. ALLMON. The Landowners are represented by D. GRISSOM, the District by N. MARTIN, and LCRA by E. ROGERS. You will note that LCRA has been very busy of late objecting to just about everything any of the protestants and the District have done. You can download and read PDF documents that interest you.
No, we don’t expect that you will want to read all of these documents but want to make sure you know where to find them if you have the desire to browse a few to get a sense of what has gone on over the last several months. We will be getting back to you in a few days with more information about what you can expect if you attend the hearing.
What to expect
Environmental Stewardship, through our expert witnesses and legal team has presented evidence of the impacts discussed above in prefiled testimony. Our legal team will lay out our case regarding these impacts at the hearing being held in Bastrop on October 15-18 and 21-22. You are invited to attend the hearing and read the testimony in advance if you wish.
We will also provide you with information by way of our blog, Constant Contact and FaceBook to help you better understand the case we are making and what to expect as the hearing gets underway. Please stay tuned.
We are very grateful to the Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation, the Trull Foundation, Environmental Fund of Texas, First National Bank of Bastrop, and the many individual that have made grants and donations to Environmental Stewardship to support this effort.
To all of you, thank you for your interest and support. I hope to see many of you at the hearing.
Steve Box
Board President and Executive Director
Environmental Stewardship