McGregor is picking up the tab after SpaceX’s rocket testing plant overpumped groundwater water for three years.
The city agreed to pay at least $175,000 in combined penalties to the Southern Trinity Groundwater Conservation District over the next 25 years, the largest penalty the district has issued.
McGregor is on the hook for the SpaceX penalties because it owns the site and its wells.
The City Council on Monday approved a negotiated settlement with the district, avoiding a potential district court battle.
For each of the past three years, the groundwater district has sent violation notices to SpaceX and McGregor for overpumping a total of 128 million gallons.
The penalty includes a one-time $50,000 payment due Nov. 1, plus a $1,250 quarterly payment over the next 25 years to service a new groundwater monitoring system on the well SpaceX uses. The city must also show “reasonable efforts to obtain additional sources of water.”
“We’re very satisfied with the outcome,” McGregor City Manager Kevin Evans said Tuesday. “Water will always be an issue. We’re working with SpaceX and everyone else in the industrial park to use less potable water.”
He cited SpaceX’s ongoing efforts to reuse water at its McGregor location, in addition to the city’s efforts to secure alternative water sources. Options include buying groundwater from other communities or Belton Lake water through the Bluebonnet Water Supply Corp., which already serves McGregor residents.
McGregor Mayor Jim Lilley is employed as Bluebonnet’s general manager.
Evans said SpaceX has already scaled back its groundwater use, and he expects no more conflicts with the groundwater district.
“Plenty of water”
After the Monday meeting, Mayor Lilley suggested that fears of groundwater depletion are overblown.
“There’s plenty of water in the aquifer,” he said. “This last year that we overpumped our permit number just proved that there’s plenty of water in the aquifer.”
Groundwater district president Rodney Kroll said studies of the Southern Trinity Aquifer say otherwise.
“Our aquifer does not recharge,” Kroll said. “We’re very unique in that regard. … What that says ultimately is that the water level is going down annually, and some day, we’ll reach a point where there’s no (ground)water.”
That point could come as soon as 50 years from now, he said.
The countywide groundwater district was formed in 2008 after state regulators determined it faced “critical” groundwater shortages in coming decades.
Leadership criticized
Danny Campbell, a McGregor resident, spoke up against the deal at Monday’s meeting.
“SpaceX is the primary driver for overpumping these wells, and they're not responsible for the litigation, they're not responsible for the fees, and they're not responsible for the attorney's costs,” said. “They're not responsible for any of it, and every dollar that goes towards things like this is one dollar taken from our community.”
Campbell said she took out a $1,200 full-page ad in the McGregor Mirror this month to highlight the SpaceX overpumping violation, as well as what she sees as a lack of transparency in the city’s response to it.
No SpaceX representatives spoke at Monday’s meeting, and the company did not respond to a Bridge request for comment Wednesday by email.
City Manager Evans said funds for the penalty will come out of a sale of city property, not tax revenue.
This article first appeared on The Waco Bridge.
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