The 79^th Texas Legislature passed HB1763 that requires groundwater conservation districts (GCD) across the state to determine the desired future conditions (DFC) for the major and minor aquifers within the 16 Groundwater Management Areas that were created by earlier legislation.  This unfunded mandate must be completed by September 1, 2010, with updates occurring every five years.

At the December 17, 2007 Groundwater Management Area 8 (GMA 8) meeting, the 10 member committee adopted DFCs for 5 of the 9 aquifers within its boundary.  The five aquifers with adopted DFCs are the Edwards BFZ, Blossom, Brazos River Alluvium, Nacatoch, and Woodbine.  DFCs for the remaining four aquifers—Trinity, Ellenburger-San Saba, Hickory, and Marble Falls—were developed but have not been adopted by the committee.  The adopted DFCs will be provided to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) who will then determine the managed available groundwater (MAG).   These numbers will be included in the Regional and State Water Plans and will determine how much groundwater may be produced within an area.  To guarantee inclusion of the MAGs in the next regional and state planning cycles, the DFCs must be provided to the TWDB by January 1, 2008.  

The methodology used for developing the DFCs for the Edwards BFZ, Trinity, and Woodbine aquifers involved using the TWDB Groundwater Availability Model (GAM) to simulate the projected effect that various pumping levels will have on the aquifers.  The results from the GAM simulations were evaluated and then used to develop the DFCs.  With the exception of the Woodbine, there are no GAMs available for the minor aquifers; therefore, the methodology used to determine the DFCs for these aquifers involved developing and using a 2 dimension spreadsheet to predict potential effects of pumping in the aquifers.

 Affected counties within GMA 8 are listed below:

Northern Edwards BFZ Aquifer:  Bell, Travis, and Williamson

Blossom Aquifer:  Bowie, Lamar, and Red River

Brazos River Alluvium Aquifer:  Bosque, Falls, Hill, McLennan, and Milam

Nacatoch Aquifer:  Bowie, Delta, Franklin, Hopkins, Hunt, Kaufman, Lamar, Navarro, Rains, and Red River

Woodbine Aquifer:  Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hill, Hunt, Johnson, Kaufman, Lamar, McLennan, Navarro, Red River, Rockwall, and Tarrant 

The next meeting of GMA 8 has not been determined but will be posted at a later date.

GMA 8 encompasses 45 counties from Travis County in the south to the Texas/ Oklahoma border in the north and includes the following Groundwater Conservation Districts:

Central Texas GCD - Burnet Co.

Clearwater Underground Water Conservation District (UWCD) - Bell Co.

Fox Crossing Water District - Mills Co.

McLennan Co. GCD - McLennan Co.

Middle Trinity GCD - Comanche & Erath Co

Northern Trinity GCD - Tarrant Co.

Post Oak Savannah GCD - Milam & Burleson Co.

Saratoga UWCD - Lampasas Co.

Tablerock GCD - Coryell Co.

Upper Trinity GCD - Hood, Montague, Parker & Wise Co. 

View Map of groundwater conservation districts within GMA 8.