History

One of the first areas identified for remediation was the waters downstream of the San Marcos wastewater treatment plant, which treated waste at the minimum standard required by the state. SMRF challenged their permit renewal and sought a permit requiring cleaner discharge. It was a long and costly fight, but SMRF prevailed. TCEQ did not want to make the permit strict enough to include the treatment of phosphorous, but after lobbying by SMRF and many local residents, the City voluntarily agreed to include phosphorous treatment in its wastewater plan.

SMRF later confronted the City on its plans to withdraw river water to dilute discharge at the wastewater plant. Often referred to as a bed-and-banks permit, treatment plants use the bed and banks of the river to transport wastewater to their water plant downstream using the river water/wastewater combination. This case, technically very complicated, went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld the Appeals Court ruling in favor of SMRF.

A great deal was learned during these early years. SMRF also began researching water rights along the river, how the state regulates those, and how low the river can get during dry times with all the previously granted water rights. Lower flows, due to over-permitting and drought, would naturally affect the assimilation of wastewater, lower dissolved oxygen levels, and cause other problems downstream.

SMRF then decided to file a water rights application, purchasing water as do other permitted entities for industrial or irrigation purposes. However, SMRF would insist that their purchase be left in the river instead of pulling it out. SMRF believed this would force TCEQ to calculate how much water was actually in the river and realize that with their over-permitting, they would have to admit that they would be unable to grant SMRF's request.

This began a ten-year-long legal battle in which SMRF sued TCEQ for refusing to treat our water right like any other application. Applicants do have to specify where they would be measuring their water rights, and SMRF chose the Gulf Coast estuaries and bay since that way, the whole river would have the benefit of SMRF's water rights. Also required was a study showing that the water would not be wasted. SMRF, with its $25,000 application check, submitted the state's own voluminous study about how much water the bays required- 1.3 million-acre feet- the exact amount in SMRF's application.

Under the threat of a lawsuit for failure to handle it in a timely manner, TCEQ Commissioners hastily put it on their agenda and denied it. SMRF sued right away and won in District Court to have the application handled properly and sent to a public hearing process.

As the legal battle went on, SMRF worked with American Rivers to get the Guadalupe River declared one of the Top Endangered Rivers in 2003, bringing national publicity to our region's water problems. SMRF also worked to assemble the many stakeholders with a clear interest in freshwater reaching the coast, where among other things, the whooping cranes winter and depend on freshwater in their feeding grounds. Many foundations, birding groups, fishing and shrimping coalitions, and other river groups statewide also began filing applications for in-stream rights or supported SMRF's.

With a new focus on water availability, an overload of requests for in-stream rights, and entities like GBRA concerned about the ramifications of SMRF's water rights application, the legislature eventually handled the matter by passing a retroactive law saying TCEQ could not grant a new "in-stream" water rights to anyone unless it was a conversion from an existing water right granted for irrigation or industry.

The law passed by the Legislature as a result of SMRF's case, however, did create the SB3 process or the Bay/Basin Stakeholder process where citizens from different "silos" representing farmers, fishermen, cities, counties, and environmental groups and all other interested parties, gather to appoint a science team to review all scientific evidence regarding water needs in rivers and bays. SMRF represents our region on the Bay/Basin Stakeholder process and sits on the committee that chooses the scientific studies designed to simply determine how much water Texas rivers should be allowed to have, how much should go to bays, what are minimum flow levels and how much water is needed to maintain a healthy eco-system.

SMRF has served on the City Comprehensive Plan committee and follows all P&Z and City Council meetings to follow development and transportation plans closely to quantify the impact they might have on the river.

SMRF has supported litter control projects in the parks, improved public access, advocated for more green space to mitigate flooding issues, and helps educate and alert the public and local officials to potential threats to the river and how best to tackle them. In addition, SMRF has worked with landowners downstream to resolve issues involving the tubing companies and large numbers of recreational tubers behaving poorly and leaving behind lots of trash. Currently, SMRF is focused on downstream development, wastewater effluent treatment standards, and development and regulatory policy in the recharge zones.