Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
In this issue’s Q&A, Texas+Water Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Todd Votteler, interviews Toby Baker, Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), about the Texas Groundwater Protection Committee. The executive director, who is hired by the commissioners, is responsible for managing the agency’s day-to-day operations.
Prior to Baker’s recent move to executive director, he served as Commissioner for TCEQ for six years. He, along with his two fellow full-time commissioners, established overall agency direction and policy and made final determinations on contested permitting and enforcement matters.
Baker also serves as Governor Abbott’s appointee to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, represents Texas as the Chair on the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Management Team and serves on the Coastal Land Advisory Board.
Baker was a policy and budget advisor on energy, natural resources, and agriculture issues for the Office of the Texas Governor, where he was also the liaison between the office and members of the Legislature, constituents, the Railroad Commission of Texas, the TCEQ, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Texas Animal Health Commission. He is a past natural resource policy advisor to Senator Craig Estes and the former director and clerk of the Texas Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Coastal Resources.
Baker received a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University, where he was a member of the Corps of Cadets, and a Master of Public Service and Administration from the Texas A&M Bush School of Government and Public Service. He is also a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School and the Governor’s Executive Development Program at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs.
What is the Texas Groundwater Protection Committee (TGPC)?
The TGPC (or Committee) is an interagency committee that coordinates statewide actions for the protection of groundwater quality in Texas. The TGPC strives to identify areas where new or existing groundwater programs could be enhanced, as well as improve coordination among the state’s agencies and organizations involved in groundwater-related activities.
Why was the TGPC created?
House Bill 1458, sponsored by Representative Lena Guerrero in the House and Senator H. Tati Santiesteban in the Senate, was passed by the 71st Legislature in 1989. It set out the state’s groundwater protection policy and created the TGPC in Chapter 26 of the Texas Water Code. The TGPC bridges the gap between state groundwater programs, improves coordination between member agencies and organizations and works to protect groundwater as a vital resource.
What is the mission of the TGPC?
The duties of the Committee include:
- Coordinating groundwater protection activities of the agencies and organizations represented on the Committee;
- Developing and updating a comprehensive groundwater protection strategy for the state;
- Studying and recommending to the legislature groundwater protection programs for areas in which groundwater is not protected by current regulation;
- Providing the Governor and legislature with a report each biennium on the Committee’s activities and recommendations; and,
- Publishing a joint groundwater monitoring and contamination report each year.
As part of its legislative mandate, the Committee helps facilitate its members’ implementation of the state’s groundwater protection policy. This policy establishes non-degradation of the state’s groundwater as the goal for all state programs. It recognizes the variability of the state’s aquifers, the importance of maintaining water quality for existing and potential uses, the protection of the environment and the maintenance and enhancement of the state’s long-term economic health.
Who are the TGPC members?
The TGPC includes a representative from each of the following statewide agencies and organizations:
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
- Texas Water Development Board
- Railroad Commission of Texas
- Texas Department of State Health Services
- Texas Department of Agriculture
- Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board
- Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts
- Texas A&M AgriLife Research
- Bureau of Economic Geology of The University of Texas at Austin
- Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
These 10 members all deal with groundwater in some form or fashion. The Legislature designated the executive director of TCEQ as the Chair of the Committee and the executive administrator of Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) as the vice chair, while TCEQ staff provide primary administrative and technical support for the Committee. Unlike other state agencies, the TGPC is not subject to sunset review since it does not receive direct state appropriations.
What are the activities of the TGPC?
The TGPC carries out numerous administrative duties required by state law, such as developing reports, holding required quarterly public meetings and ensuring that documents are maintained in a manner that makes them easily accessible to the public. Much of the TGPC’s work is performed in its meetings and through the efforts of its three subcommittees – the Groundwater Issues Subcommittee, Public Outreach and Education Subcommittee and Legislative Report Subcommittee.
The TGPC has developed a Groundwater Classification System for use by state agencies, and several TGPC members perform their own groundwater monitoring. Texas Water Code Section 26.408 requires TCEQ to inform private drinking water well owners of groundwater contamination that has the potential to affect their water wells, and the TGPC developed the form and content of the TCEQ notice.
Does the TGPC work directly with the Regional Water Planning Groups (RWPGs), Groundwater Management Areas (GMAs), or Groundwater Conservation Districts (GCDs) themselves? If so, how?
The TGPC does not work directly with RWPGs, GMAs, or GCDs, but issues related to these entities are often discussed during Committee meetings and TWDB provides updates and information related to regional water planning activities. GCDs are an important part of the regional water planning process, and 86 of the 101 GCDs in the state are members of the Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts (TAGD).
TAGD represents its members’ interests in TGPC matters and reports on their activity within the GMAs during Committee meetings. TCEQ provides limited oversight of GCDs relating to groundwater management plans and joint-district planning in common GMAs, and TCEQ offers GCDs educational and technical assistance upon request.
What are the TGPC’s recommendations for addressing some of the current threats to groundwater quality in the state?
The following groundwater protection recommendations are listed in the TGPC’s current report to the Legislature[i]:
- Provide positive incentives for landowner-initiated closure of abandoned and/or deteriorated water wells through the establishment of an abandoned water well plugging fund;
- Provide funding for private water well testing for well owners in counties with natural disaster designations due to flooding;
- Provide educational tools, programs and assistance to Texans through the Texas Well Owner Network (TWON) program;
- Provide funding for the TexasET (Evapotranspiration) Network in support of a Statewide ET network and the Statewide Meteorological Monitoring Network (TexMesoNet) and to allow the two networks to collaborate and share data; and,
- Provide funding for the development of a statewide system to collect and record the location and detailed permit and design information for all Onsite Sewage Facilities (OSSFs) at the time of installation or servicing because of the potential of failing systems to negatively affect groundwater quality.
[i] The TGPC’s Legislative Report should be published by the end of December 2020.
What are some of the accomplishments of the TGPC?
The TGPC’s accomplishments include the development of two online map-based applications – the Water Well Report Viewer and the Groundwater Contamination Viewer.
The Water Well Report Viewer allows users to geographically locate and view scanned copies of over a million historical reports for water wells drilled in Texas. The Groundwater Contamination Viewer allows users to query and obtain spatial relationship information about groundwater contamination cases as per the most recent Joint Groundwater Monitoring and Contamination Reports.
The TGPC website is frequently updated with new information on groundwater protection activities. In addition to providing information about TGPC business to its members and the public, the website is a clearinghouse for many groundwater-related topics, supplying links to the websites and publications of TGPC members and other organizations.
Over its 31-year history, the TGPC has produced and delivered 16 reports to the Legislature with recommendations; produced and delivered 31 Joint Groundwater Monitoring and Contamination Reports which have tracked 21,588 cases of groundwater contamination; produced numerous brochures, fact sheets and white papers on groundwater-related subjects; participated in the preparation of three Pesticide Management Plans; and, produced three groundwater protection strategies for the state.