Implementing Voluntary Source Water Protection in the State of Texas

Abstract

The Texas Source Water Assessment and Protection (SWAP) Program was promulgated as part of amendments to the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act and consists of two fundamental aspects: Assessment and Protection. Administered under the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), compliance with the State of Texas Source Water Protection (SWP) program is voluntary and thus taking action on the information contained in the assessments has been encouraged but ultimately left to the discretion of the water system. The objective of this paper is to present an overview of recent SWP implementation efforts in Texas public groundwater systems. Since 2007, TCEQ and its subcontractor CDM have implemented SWP activities for selected project areas. The individual water systems have been selected because they: (1) are highly susceptible, as determined through the initial source water assessment; (2) lack substantial source water protection implementation; and (3) are small water systems. Required elements of source water protection programs include the delineation of the wellhead protection area, development of a contaminant inventory, evaluation of appropriate best management practices (BMPs), preparation of a contingency plan and preparation of a final source water protection report. A streamlined process was developed and employed by CDM to implement the required elements for multiple supply systems concurrently and will be presented. Components of the process include the use of development and use of standardized forms, and report templates, and implementation of a BMP evaluation database tool. In addition, a source water assessment and protection brand was developed to facilitate recognition and communication of a consistent message as part of a comprehensive public education and outreach program. These processes, coupled with effective data analysis and proactive consensus building, have yielded successful SWP implementation. The success of current efforts in the State of Texas will be discussed. Voluntary involvement in the project has been high for the identified systems. A total of seven systems have successfully completed the SWP process, protecting drinking water for 18,000 customers. Of these seven systems, three have completed outreach events focused on SWP with the assistance of TCEQ and several have begun the process of BMP implementation. TCEQ's goal for this project is substantial implementation of SWP activities and the public groundwater systems identified for this project appear to be well on their way to achieving those goals.