PECOS COUNTY, Texas — Many places in West Texas rely on groundwater for everything, from drinking to irrigation. However, it's important for folks in places where well water is sparse to keep tabs on how much water is pumped.
That's why Pecos County is turning to a new system to track how much water is being pumped from aquifers in the county. Also, it wants the new system to ensure the water keeps flowing for everyone.
For several decades, landowners and local governments have disagreed over who is pumping how much groundwater, and what it is doing to aquifer levels.
Now, the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District (MPGCD) has unveiled a new website that can answer all of these questions with the click of mouse, and most importantly, it is linked to pumping data from every water well in Pecos County.
"So the groundwater district had a need several years ago," said Ty Edwards, the general manager of MPGCD. "We have been collecting data for the groundwater district for a long time. Generally, for many entities across the whole state (Texas), we do this through Excel, we do this in spreadsheets. [Now, we have a] half-built data management system that does a way with that and basically it houses every well in the district. Every well has its own number. When you entered information into that well, it auto-populates it through the whole system."
Without any statewide groundwater law, the legislature allowed for the formation of local groundwater districts to regulate pumping in that county only, but not state wide.
After forming a Pecos County groundwater district, all wells were required to be metered, showing pumping amounts.
The new website from MPGCD is live and available to the public and is updated automatically.