U.S. Rep. Chip Roy and leaders from the San Antonio Water System are pushing back against plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add two types of eyeless fish to the endangered species list.
On Aug. 21 USFWS proposed designating the toothless blindcat and the widemouth blindcat as “endangered,” a move leaders at the city’s water utility worry would result in the closure of wells that San Antonio relies on for access to the Edwards Aquifer.
The recommendation comes despite little evidence the fish even live in the wells, opponents of the idea say, and skips over the lesser designation of “threatened.”
“This proposal is based on dubious assumptions, insufficient data, and — most importantly — could threaten the San Antonio region’s ability to access water during times of drought,” Roy (R-San Antonio) wrote in a letter Monday to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams. “… By turning off these wells, the [aquifer storage and recovery system] would no longer function as a viable water source for the City of San Antonio,” he wrote.
Monday was the first day USFWS accepted feedback on the proposal, which also drew letters of complaint from SAWS, the Edwards Aquifer Authority and other members of Bexar County’s congressional delegation.
A regional media contact for USFWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday evening. The two fish species reportedly dwell only in the Edwards Aquifer, some 900 feet underground.
The agency’s Aug. 21 proposal notes that its recommendation is based on “a review of the best available scientific and commercial information,” and that if finalized as proposed “it would extend the act’s protections to these species.”
“The toothless blindcat and the widemouth blindcat occupy a limited range, and populations of both species have likely been severely reduced since the introduction of groundwater wells in the late 19th to early 20th centuries,” the agency wrote. “… The wells constructed in blindcat habitat are not affecting the species through habitat destruction or modification; instead, it is the capture, entrainment, and death of individuals due to uptake from groundwater well pumping that threatens the species.”
Efforts to get the blindcats on the federal endangered species list date back to 2007.
But Donovan Burton, SAWS’ senior vice president of water resources and governmental relations, said in an interview Monday that the wildlife agency’s characterizations of the dangers posed by the wells is mistaken.
“What they are saying is that since our wells are [as deep as the species’ known habitat], that they are pulling up these blindcats and they get into the motors and that sort of thing, and it’s just not the case,” he said.
Burton said part of the agency’s reasoning points to fish it says were found in one of SAWS’s pumps in 1978, when wells were not running.
If USFWS goes through with the move, however, Burton said it could impact 19 of the utility’s 130 Edwards Aquifer wells, and cause water shortages across all across south Texas.
“This reaches through the entire region, all the way out to the irrigators in Comal [County] and Hays County, San Marcos, New Braunfels, downstream down the Guadalupe River and the agriculture users in Medina County,” he said. “So the potential is far-reaching.”
Of particular concern to San Antonio, he said, is a pump station near the Frost Bank Center that’s used to fill an underground storage facility that allows SAWS to reserve water for dry times.
“Should something happened to the Artesia Pump Station, it would significantly impact the amount of water that we’re able to put into our aquifer storage and recovery system,” Burton said.
