Bob Zimmer Named President of GMA 1 Bob Zimmer, Hansford and Hutchinson County Director of the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District (GCD), has been selected as the president of Texas’ Groundwater Management Area 1 (GMA 1) Joint Planning Committee. Zimmer has served as a member of the North Plains GCD Board of Directors for 11 years, holding the positions of secretary, vice-president and president during his time on the board. GMA 1 is one of 16 Groundwater Management Areas throughout the state of Texas that participate in the state groundwater planning process. GMA 1 consists of 18 counties stretching from the northern-most panhandle counties, south to Oldham and Randall County in the West and Wheeler and Donley County in the East. Four groundwater conservation districts are included, either all or in part, in GMA 1, including: North Plains Groundwater Conservation District, Hemphill County Underground Water Conservation District, Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District and High Plains Underground Water Conservation District. The GMA 1 Joint Planning Committee is comprised of the president of the board, or their appointee, from each of the districts in GMA 1. The Texas Legislature authorized creation of Groundwater Management Areas to allow GCDs to joint plan for the future of groundwater resources in the state. The GMAs were developed to “…provide for the conservation, preservation, protection, recharging and prevention of waste of groundwater…” Legislation required groundwater districts in a GMA to create management plans for the individual districts and share that information with the other members of the GMA. In 2005, HB 1763 required GMAs to meet and determine Desired Future Conditions (DFCs) for the aquifers within the GMA. A DFC is a measureable goal for the amount of groundwater the stakeholders of a particular GMA determine to have available in an aquifer at a particular time in the future. In 2010, stakeholders in GMA 1 settled on DFCs of 40-percent of the aquifer left in 50 years for the northwest counties of Dallam, Hartley, Sherman and Moore; 80-percent left in Hemphill County; and 50-percent left in the rest of the remaining 13 counties. The GMA 1 Joint Planning Committee is reviewing the Desired Future Conditions that were established in 2010 for the aquifers within the GMA 1 boundaries. The board is required to submit a new set of DFC’s to the Texas Water Development Board by May 2016.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 23:37:03 +0000
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