Feb. 18--A public hearing will be held Thursday during the monthly meeting of the Neches and Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District to determine whether or not well-drilling and -operating permits will be issued to a Rusk mining company.

New Birmingham Resources has sought permission to operate a well, with the capacity to pump 300 gallons per minute, for use with its mining operation. Conservation District General Manager Roy Rodgers said concerns have been raised due to the close proximity of NBR's well to one of the city of Rusk's water-supply wells.

"Their well is fairly close to the city's well, so there was some concern that it might impact the city's water, but I think the two have worked out a solution so it won't be a problem," Rodgers said. "I believe New Birmingham is going to run their well into the Queen City Aquifer, while the city goes down deeper into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer. If they both operate in different aquifers they should have no impact on each other."

Rodgers said any citizens interested in voicing their opinion regarding these permit applications will have that opportunity at Thursday's meeting.

In other news, the district's board of directors will consider passing a resolution petitioning the state legislature for more funding to be given to the Texas Water Development Board for the use of producing new groundwater availability models.

"The legislature passed House Bill 1763 fours years ago, and that was the one that required groundwater districts to set Desired Future Conditions for the aquifer. In order to do that, we are dependent on TWDB to run these models for us, and they just don't have the money to hire the modelers," Rodgers said. "The water development board has got to have this money or else we are not going to be able to get the DFCs done that they want. This resolution is something we, and other groundwater conservation districts in the state, really need to do -- we really need the funding bad."

According to Rodgers, an existing, outdated groundwater availability model could be used to set the conditions, but it would be nowhere near as useful to the district as current data.

"We could probably set the DFCs with the information that we have now, but then we would have to come back in a few years and change it as we got more updated information," he said. "We have almost all of the districts in the state doing this together right now, and it makes a lot more sense to make something we can all live with the first time rather than having to go back and get it changed later."

Other agenda items include:

--approval of the minutes from previous meetings;

--approval of the 2008 Management Plan Report;

--approval of the 2008 Financial Investment Report; and

--paying the bills.

The NTVGCD board of directors regularly meets at 1:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month, at their offices at 212 S. Main St. in Jacksonville. All meetings of the NTVGCD are open to the public.

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