In early 2015 the Wimberley Valley learned that a Houston company, Electro Purification, held contracts to pump more than five million gallons a day from the Trinity Aquifer at a well field on Ranch Road 3237, about five and a half miles northeast of Wimberley. The wells sat in a gap on the map. No groundwater conservation district covered that corner of Hays County, so under Texas law nothing could limit how much was pumped. In February 2015 a town hall on the plan drew so many people that some were turned away at the door. The next month residents who depend on private wells in the same aquifer, organised as the Trinity Edwards Springs Protection Association, sued in Hays County district court. The fight moved to the Legislature. House Bill 3405, carried by Representative Jason Isaac and Senator Donna Campbell, placed the company's land under the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, which meant any pumping would need a permit. Late in the session the bill was declared dead on a point of order, then revived when the House parliamentarian acknowledged an error. It passed the Senate 28 to 3 and the House 143 to 1. The district now had the power to set limits. In 2017 the company applied to pump about 2.5 million gallons a day from five wells, half its original figure. In 2018 the district's board sent the application to a contested-case hearing before state administrative judges, with Hays County backing the challenge. In February 2021 the company cancelled the hearing. The district treated the application as withdrawn, though the company's lawyer disputed that reading.
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30.0450, -98.0250
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