The Texas Water Development Board estimates that the State’s population will increase by more than 20 million between the years 2000 and 2060. Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 State Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board
Most of that growth will be in central, east, and south Texas – areas where the population of many counties is expected to increase by more than 100 percent. (South Texas is the principal uranium mining area of the State.) Large percentage increases are also expected in far west Texas (El Paso County) and in areas of the Texas Panhandle (Lubbock and Amarillo).
Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 State Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board
The expected increase in population will strain Texas’ sources of surface water and groundwater, especially as urban areas demand ever larger volumes of water to meet requirements to sustain municipal, industrial, and commercial uses. Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board

Summary

We don’t have a lot of water in Texas so it is vital that we protect the quality of our drinking water. Water is the lifeblood of our economies.

* The Texas State Water Plan establishes in law a state-wide objective to make sure there are adequate water resources available for Texas.
* Texas is a drought-prone region.
* Demands on water are increasing while supplies are expected to decrease. Population is expected to double by 2060.
* We must first and foremost make sure that people have clean and reliable drinking water.
* Obtaining water locally is cost- and energy-efficient and the best solution for the environment.
* It is irresponsible and counter to the Texas State Water Plan to allow uranium mining companies to contaminate drinking water aquifers.

Texas State Water Plan

The Texas Water Development Board estimates that the State’s population will increase by more than 20 million between the years 2000 and 2060.

See Figure 1. Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 State Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board

Most of that growth will be in central, east, and south Texas – areas where the population of many counties is expected to increase by more than 100 percent. (South Texas is the principal uranium mining area of the State.) Large percentage increases are also expected in far west Texas (El Paso County) and in areas of the Texas Panhandle (Lubbock and Amarillo).

See Figure 2. Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 State Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board

The expected increase in population will strain Texas’ sources of surface water and groundwater, especially as urban areas demand ever larger volumes of water to meet requirements to sustain municipal, industrial, and commercial uses.

See Figure 3. Source: Chapter 4 of 2007 Water Plan, Texas Water Development Board

Because of concerns over the recurrence of drought and population growth on the availability of water, the Texas Legislature, in 1997, established an on-going and evolving state-wide water planning and management program known as Senate Bill 1. A principal objective of the program is to develop regional management plans to ensure that sufficient water is available to sustain economic growth and to meet the needs of all of the State’s residents over a 50-year planning period.

The Texas State Water Plan , developed and published by the Texas Water Development Board, is based on input from representatives of Water Planning Groups from 16 planning regions.

The Water Plan lays out population and water usage statistics for each region and attempts to establish goals and policy objectives to meet the expected water needs of each region. Because a principal objective of the planning process is to work toward sustainability and availability of water, the State must consider the impact of activities such as in-situ leach mining of uranium on ground water.

Failure to Restore Groundwater

In-situ leach mining has been shown to be a significant and persistent source of groundwater contamination at many sites around the world.

At a late August 2008 public hearing held in Nebraska, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official and a uranium mining executive acknowledged that restoration of an aquifer to baseline is unachievable after uranium mining operations. The official Bill Von Till said, “Some of the parameters they have had a little bit of difficulty returning to baseline have been parameters like uranium and radium, because when they come in and use oxygen and bicarbonate and loosen that uranium up that’s a more difficult parameter to return to baseline”’; and, the mining executive Mike Griffin admitted, “That [bringing water back to baseline standards] usually isn’t realistically achievable, because of geochemical changes.”

In Texas, the Kleberg County Citizen Review Board contracted Dr. George Rice, a hydrologist, who used information provided by URI in his 2007 study of the Kingsville Dome mine. He found that there were serious problems in not identifying excursions of mining solutions and predicted further serious problems after the mine was shut down due to normal groundwater movement which could carry the contamination into other areas of the aquifer.

The recently released "Report on Findings Related to the Restoration of In Situ Uranium Mines in South Texas" by B. K. Darling found that the uranium mining industry in Texas has failed to restore water quality to baseline levels while the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has practiced a pattern of routinely relaxing water quality standards by failing to enforce initial requirements and amending restoration levels,

Because of the mining industry’s poor track record of cleaning up such sites, it is incumbent upon Texans to demand a moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in the State.