Edward's Aquifer background

Edwards Aquifer

The Edwards Aquifer is a major aquifer in Texas that not only serves as a source of drinking water for approximately 2 million people but also supports industrial and agricultural uses for San Antonio and surrounding cities. It is a porous water-bearing layer of irregular honeycombed rock which includes sinkholes, underground streams, and caverns. The Edwards Aquifer karst features allows the aquifer to replenish via rainfall, the rainwater seeps through the surface into the ground, creating a continuous drinking source for San Antonio. This environmentally sensitive area is vulnerable to surface pollution because it could potentially affect the quality of the drinking water (Eckhardt, 2016).

For these reasons the area, also known as a recharge zone, is very important to nearby cities. The Edwards Aquifer Authority was instilled in 1993 to regulate substances around the area and usage of the aquifer.

The requirements for these regulated substances include not exceeding concentrated volumes of 55 gallons and mandate reports for spills that occur for above and underground storage tanks (Recharge Zone Regulations, 2016). The EAA also monitors activity around the Edwards aquifer in several other ways in an attempt to protect the groundwater from contamination (Regulatory History of the Edwards Aquifer, 2015). The EAA focuses on several counties, including Uvalde, Medina, Bexar, and Comal. The focus of our project is to observe substance concentrations of Sulfate, Nitrate, and Chloride, from 1955 to 2015, using Texas Water Development Board (TWDP) public records.