Deal helps provide much needed water to projects, like the proposed new Navarro High School campus
(Seguin) — The Seguin City Council has approved a deal that will allow the city to expand its water service territory and help meet the growing demands for water in the area.
The city council on Tuesday reached an agreement with the Springs Hill Water Supply Corporation to take over a portion of an area that had previously been serviced by Springs Hill.
City Manager Steve Parker says the city is growing at a rapid rate, and Springs Hill was having some trouble meeting some of the proposed demands for service. Parker says this deal will make sure that the city has the necessary water infrastructure and capacity in place to handle new residential and commercial developments, in what will become their new expanded water service territory.
“We have had really fast growth probably faster than anyone could ever imagine and just the way that the two entities are set up, the PUC, the Public Utility Commission designates who could serve what areas and we’ve been working with Springs Hill on SWAP that would actually be beneficial to them because they have some struggles with providing water to certain areas of their community. The city worked with them to step up and actually purchased a portion of their area, their utility area and so basically everything north of I-10 between 46 and 123 up to Link Road will now be the service territory of the city of Seguin. So, if you are an existing customer in that area, Mills Creek (etc.), you will actually become a customer of the city of Seguin,” said Parker.
Parker says the changes will be done in phases. The first phase covers nearly 3,200 acres that’s currently under various stages of development. He says none of that area is currently receiving water service, and he says the city will pay Springs Hill $500,000 to take over this area.
The second phase is about twice the size of the initial phase, and the city will pay $2.5 million to acquire the service rights for this area. The just over 6,300 acres covers a residential area that already has a number of existing Springs Hill accounts. This area includes locations, like the Mill Creek Subdivision, located off State Highway 46 inside the Seguin city limits. Parker says this phase is a little more complicated and the city will need to make sure the transition to the city’s water supply is seamless.
“This will take several months, years to develop because we’ve got to make those transitions, do all the proper filing of paperwork with the Public Utility Commission but at the end of the day, this will free up enough water for Springs Hill to service the other areas that they committed water to and it will actually be a great benefit to the city of Seguin because now, we will be able to double our customer size from almost 8,500 customers to almost 17,000 customers which will actually provide a long term benefit because you have more people paying for the overall volume water so the unit cost of water goes down but we will actually be able to service those areas and double our customer count so a great win for the city of Seguin, a great win for the Springs Hill Corporation and actually be able to handle some of this growth that has come along so fast in all of the areas,” said Parker.
Parker says this deal could not have happened without the foresight of past city leaders. He says the city is in a position to expand its water service territory, because Seguin has an abundance of water. The city has its original water rights along the Guadalupe River, but the city’s surplus is largely due to the fact that the cities of Seguin and Schertz jointly formed the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation, which secured water from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Gonzales County. The SSLGC is already selling water to a number of entities, and Parker says this means the city of Seguin has the capacity to take on these new customers.
“Seguin has been well poised in the water area. You know, they not only had the surface water they get from the Guadalupe River. Some of the oldest water rights in the state of Texas on the Guadalupe belongs to us and then a partnership that was created almost 20 years ago with the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation where we’ve actually got groundwater rights in the Carrizo-Wilcox to service those customers. So, we are very well poised for the next 20, 30, 40 years to serve these areas. Now, we are going to update our water planning model. If there is another water that we’ve got to go out and get for the future beyond that, we will have the information to be able to do that. That was actually approved at this council meeting as well is a water planning study to make sure we have water well into the future,” said Parker.
Parker says some developments, like the new Navarro High School were potentially being slowed down, because the water capacity was not available through Springs Hill. He says this deal with help to move some of those projects forward. He says the city will have the full capacity to handle that project and others in that area.
“It was really water capacity more than infrastructure. We’ve got a lot of pipes in that area. They have pipes in that area but at the end of the day, we didn’t want to create a service territory where part of it is Springs Hill and the next lot was the city of Seguin, the next lot was Springs Hill. This is going to give us a defined service area that makes us really more efficient by planning. We know that these 9,000 acres will now come onto the service area for the city of Seguin. It helps Springs Hill plan their service areas and create projects — that you don’t’ have a lot of crisscross networks. So, it was a great project to get that larger service area and free up that much space for both entities to know where we are coming from,” said Parker.
Mayor Donna Dodgen says she’s excited about this deal and excited about what it means for the future of Seguin. Dodgen again stressed that this was a deal that was good for both Seguin and Springs Hill, but she says it’s also good for the community-at-large.
“As a total community, it is helping all of us and it’s helping the development that is occurring which is going to bring other things here. It is about density. It is about numbers whether we like that or not. If a development comes, then other things come with that. Retail, commercial, the restaurants that we want — those sorts of things so it’s just an incredible opportunity to continue to move us forward and not stymies’ or move us back because we have the water for the folks to do the developments, to do the planning, for Navarro to do their high school and continue with that — any other sort of other development that occurs in that area and that will just give us more opportunities,” said Dodgen.
Parker says once the deal is blessed by the PUC, they’ll immediately begin making some changes. He says the work will be done in phases, because some projects will be larger in scope and will take a longer time to develop.
“There’s some connections that we can make happen very very quickly because we have pipes in the area where we can just create some valves and make that water happen here. The other will take some water supply projects. We started the designs on those because we knew that this would have to happen because we had a lot of developers that were coming in and needed this infrastructure who have already designed their subdivision and so forth. So, we said what is it going to take to make all of this happen. We have done a lot of the feasibility studies. Now, it’s going to be the implementation of those projects. Some are very small. But, some of them do take some significant capital improvement projects so we have been working with developers before now saying what will it take to get water to your area and when do we anticipate that. Some of that is two years away — at least two, three years away. Some we can have happen as soon as we get approval from the PUC that they approve this deal. There is no reason to think they would not approve this deal moving forward,” said Parker.
The city has a slightly different water rate structure for its residential customers, which city officials say might result in a potentially lower water bill for some customers in this new service area. The paperwork is now going to the PUC for formal approval.