Greetings!
The continuation of the LCRA's hearing on its application for a groundwater permit has been scheduled, but the public notice has not been published yet. Rather than wait until the formal notice, here is where the in-person only hearings will beheld:
Bastrop Convention Center
1408 Chestnut Street
Bastrop, Texas 78602
LCRA Rehearing: 2:00 p.m., April 4, 2022
City of Bastrop Hearing: 6:00 p.m., April 4, 2022
The LCRA requested a rehearing on its application to produce 25,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater from the Griffith League Ranch in Bastrop County, Texas. Having agreed to reconsider their decision, Lost Pines Board gave the parties until March 10, 2022, to file briefs that respond to LCRA’s nine (9) complaints and gave LCRA until March 25th to file its reply brief. Click here for LCRA's reply brief. Environmental Stewardship's reply brief, along with the other briefs, can be found in the "Read More" link below.
Will this permit be DENIED!
The LCRA has doubled-down by threatening the Board. This Board does not take kindly to being bullied. Greg Ellis, counsel for the Board on the LCRA matter, warned as he announced the agreement to a rehearing, that the result of the rehearing could take any form, including denial of the permit. Applicant take heed!
LCRA has been belligerent toward the Lost Pines Board since the beginning. In its latest brief the LCRA has challenge the Board's authority in the broadest terms possible. When the General Manager and the other parties challenged LCRA for not identify the specific points of error that LCRA claimed, LCRA replied saying "the error is global, applies to all challenges, and does not pertain to any particular finding of fact or conclusion of law". LCRA went further to say that "the Board's Final Order and all findings and conclusions are invalid". (LCRA Reply draft page 3, section II, emphasis added). Then, the LCRA started piling on -- a football term -- as it followed with three pages of new case law that none of the parties will have an opportunity to rebut.
With respect to Environmental Stewardship's surface water issues, LCRA states that "the [Lost Pines'] authority does not extend to require LCRA as a permit condition to implement monitoring of surface water impacts from district-wide groundwater pumping" (page 21, Section VII). "The only effect of the provision is to provide the District with more data to inform future management decisions whether or not related whatsoever to LCRA's permits." And, LCRA goes on to say "but its inclusion also imposes an unconstitutional condition" ... "by coercing a permittee to spend money to acquire and then relinquish property interests for public benefit ...". This "would require LCRA to incur substantial costs to implement a program, such as costs of designing, acquiring, installing, and maintaining surface water monitoring equipment and acquisition of land rights to install and access the equipment." (page 24, paragraphs 1 and 2).
So what does LCRA really fear might happen as a result of a surface water monitoring agreement? LCRA fears that, having developed field data, it will be required to disclose the field data as described in Special Condition (3) which "requires LCRA to submit the data collected for analysis at the time of permit renewal and subjects LCRA to potential revisions to the permit based on such analysis." LCRA argues that "This condition is unique to LCRA's permit ... and hence "more restrictive" [than the other permits]." (page 17, paragraph 1). As a witness to the Forestar (now Gatehouse) and End Op (now Recharge Water) permits, you will agree this is not unique except in LCRA's convoluted terms and conditions.
Lost Pines' Board will consider, and possibly take action on the LCRA permit application at the April 4th hearing. The Board can issue a final decision at the hearing or at a later date. Once a decision is made, LCRA will then be free, at its own discretion, to appeal the District’s decision and seek judicial relief in Bastrop District Court.
If the LCRA is going to appeal the decision, which seems very likely given the LCRA's closing sentence: "Should [the Board] fail to correct these errors, LCRA will seek the reviewing court's determination that the Board's Final Decision is contrary to law, arbitrary and capricious, not supported by substantial evidence, and that the Board's decision should be reversed by the court" (page 27, last sentence), it is the opinion of this writer that the LCRA has set itself up for the Lost Pines Board, having had its authority challenged globally, to denied the permit for any number of credible reasons. This is solely the opinion of this author.
