Ask Larry A Q&A column with TRWA Technical Assistance Director Larry Bell
Q:
Our policy has always been to use a licensed contractor to install new facilities. Are we required by law to have a contractor who has a water license to install new facilities? Our tariff construction bidding section states the contractor must have a current water license. A: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s “Process Control Duties and Direct Supervision” guidance document allows a person to work under the supervision of a properly licensed water operator to install new construction or repair existing lines. TCEQ’s regulations allow for process control duties and repair/maintenance to be performed under an appropriately licensed individual according to 30 Texas Administrative Code Section 290.46(e). Supervision can include telephone or radio (or other) oversight under TCEQ guidance, but the individual performing the work must hold a minimum Class D license for process control duties.
on your system. Systems can have more stringent polices than TCEQ’s rules, but cannot adopt policies that are less stringent. Q: We bought 1 acre of land from a customer on our system to install an elevated storage tank so we could transport water from another well to it. The tank is on the highest elevation we could find. After we bought the land, we decided to borrow money and go ahead to drill a well and build a pump house on the property. When I brought the file back out from when we purchased the land, I realized that we don’t have a Sanitary Easement for outside our property. The previous landowner who we bought it from is deceased now so the daughter owns the adjacent land. We approached her husband about getting a sanitary easement and he said we would have to buy the whole 6 acres behind the well and a small piece of land on the side of our property. I called to ask what his price was and he wants $39,500 for acreage.
“All districts and all WSCs have the right to condemn land for a sanitary (or other) easement...”
The guidance also states a field citation or other enforcement action may be issued against the unlicensed individual for performing process control duties without an appropriate level of operator license when one is required. Your tariff provision likely was drafted under TCEQ’s old interpretation that required anyone opening a water line for repairs or construction or anyone performing process control functions to have a water license. This is not the current TCEQ requirement; however, your board is well within its rights to require contractors to have a water or wastewater license under your tariff’s construction provisions. The system can keep this tariff provision as another safeguard for the protection of the existing water mains and customers who receive water from those mains. Bottom line is your system can continue to require a contractor to use workers who are licensed or be licensed themselves when doing construction 10
Quench — September/October 2015
The 6 acres is not good land. They have cut trees and sold the top soil off of it so it would take a lot of money just to fix it back for us to even resell it. I believe he knows he has us in a bind knowing we can’t get the well going until we have that easement. Are there any other avenues we don’t know about? And, can a water supply corporation condemn land for a well site? A: To answer your last question first: no, a water supply corporation may not “condemn land for a well site.” Section 49.222(c), Water Code, expressly prohibits WSCs and districts from the use of eminent domain powers to acquire either groundwater or surface water rights. However, all districts and all WSCs have the right to condemn land for a sanitary control (or other) easement under Section 49.222. In this case it may be better to condemn or purchase and “square up” the entire property so you’ll have sufficient land should the board decide