News Releases

FORT STOCKTON, Texas (Sept. 5, 2023) — Belding Farms, a pecan grower in Fort Stockton, filed a petition with the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District (GCD) to strengthen rules intended to protect the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer that underlies Pecos County and feeds Comanche Springs.

Belding Farms, a 60-year-old pecan farm in Fort Stockton, has taken legal steps to halt renewal of a groundwater permit to export water out of Pecos County to protect its water rights and those of all others and to ensure sustainability of the aquifer.

Drought conditions are now confronting 75% of Texas, putting more pressure on critical water supplies. Thirty-two cities or water supply entities in Texas are under voluntary or mandatory water restrictions. Flows in a majority of river basins across South Central Texas have dropped below or far below normal. And the Edwards Aquifer, which stretches across thousands of acres in South Central Texas and serves San Antonio, has dropped nearly 10 feet below average levels for March...

Every five years groundwater regulators in Texas set policy and philosophy for managing the aquifers...

An Analysis of the History, Hydrogeology, Policy and Economics

Conservationists have a plan for how to enable the springs to go from an occasional to a year-round stream, and it involves paying landowners to curb their irrigation practices.