The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation Water Well Drillers Advisory Council is currently reviewing language in its rules regarding the prevention of commingling in aquifers. The rules apply to fresh water and brackish water of all aquifers and areas across the State of Texas. Due to the vast differences of water quality in aquifers or zones, the rules address sealing off those zones from one another to prevent any unforeseen water quality results that could be harmful to human health and safety or damage to property. Allowing local entities such as Groundwater Conservation Districts, Municipalities, or other entities to establish their own programs to prevent communication of different water qualities.
The Rusk County Groundwater Conservation District’s General Manager, Amanda Maloukis provided an overview of the District’s commingling prevention program of its area aquifers to the Water Well Drillers Advisory Council on August 17th ,2018. Along with an overview of the District’s program, the message was support of the current regulations and its objective of protecting the differing water qualities in our aquifers and supporting any further discussions for advancement of the rules. The goal, is to preserve the integrity of the hydrological units/layers. The current rules appear to support that objective.
The Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts, Texas Groundwater Association, and the Panola County Groundwater Conservation District also provided similar support of the rules in pursuing its objective to protect the groundwater quality from differing units and outside sources of influence, while including other areas of concern.
The TDLR Water Well Drillers Advisory Council Summit recorded meeting can be found at the provided link. RCGCD’s presentation starts at 39.00 minutes for no more than 8minutes.
We are glad to share our efforts to preserve and protect our areas groundwater resources.