Why the aquifer will never run dry

Well, @cosmo511, you obviously don’t understand what “being in the recharge zone” means or just where and how the aquifer is formed. The recharge zone can be visualized simplistically as the sides of a bowl, down which rainwater flows to a plug that fills the aquifer. If you put a well on the side of a hill, it will ALWAYS be “sputtering” unless it’s pouring rain the day you pump. In order to have good and consistent water, you will probably have to drill much, much deeper than you currently are. The aquifer is a series of limestone pockets and pools underground that collect surface water. Some of those pockets and pools are larger than others. I suspect your well rests in a deep, but relatively shallow capacity one of these. The main aquifer is not a regular shape and is not a consistent size. When they measure the water level in the aquifer, that’s from the surface, and we have NO IDEA how deep the aquifer is, or what it’s true capacity is. My family also has a ranch in the hill country, and our 30 foot hand-dug well has never run dry…but wells just across from us did. It’s a matter of where, and how deep, your well is, and not how much San Antonio uses. @waterwise is absolutely correct.

John Gerard is accurate in his story. The Edwards limestone is 450 - 600' thick and completely saturated with water in the artesian zone. That's not to say however, that our springs and wells in the recharge zone could not go dry. The springs go dry when decreasing artesian pressure drops the water lever below the land surface elevation at the particular spring. Well on the recharge zone could go dry depending on their depth and location within the Edwards.

I believe there is a misunderstanding as to where the floor of the aquifer actually is. In my understanding, the level given from the well at Fort Sam is the level of this particular well in feet above sea level. There is, to my understanding, not six hundred sixty whatever feet of water actually in the Edwards Aquifer. I would never want to say that the City will never run out of water. If it ever did though there will be some smoking deals on real estate!

B.A. Same old song, same old tune. Try a new line every once and awhile. At least you'll surprise evertone.

By the way, our well is at 685 feet.

Cat, I can only tell you what I know to be fact. We are in the recharge zone, an area that replenishes our aquifer, and we were sputtering. The water was running out. And we do not irrigate, nor do we have cattle to water. We wash clothes, our bodies, drink, and flush. We use very little water and we were running out. Thank God it rained. Thank God others as well as we conserved.

Sorry Cosmo511 but I know we have topped off at little over 700 few years ago. Now we are at 661. We have never and I mean never gotten below 600. The pump is at the bottom of 661 feet and no one knows how much farther it goes. We have one of the largest Aquifers in the US and if the environmentalist have their way people will not be able to even use it.

This dumb ass is obviously not from here or he wouldn't have ever put his name to this story.

First of all let me say that I do not know who this jack ass John Gerard is but he dosent know his ass from a hole in the ground. Let me enlighten you dumb ass. We have a ranch in the Edwards Plateau, the recharge zone, and our well was sputtering this year. The only thing that saved us was the conserving in cities like San Antonio Texas and the fact that the rains finally came. So let me say this, dumb ass, I dont know who you are, but let me say this, you dont know what the hell your talking about.

The Edwards Aquafir was placed there by the Lord for the use of His people. There is plenty of water there and more comes in every year. It will run out of water when the Lord decides and not before. These facts are well known. No Texan would keep the righteous from pumping as much water as his requirements dictate. We keep our lawns green to honor the Lord. It was the order of a wicked Federal judge that has caused all this rationing. Federal judges serve the Federal Government, which is in thrall to Satan.