Federal Court Dismisses Nearly All of Aqua Texas’ Claims; District’s Overpumping Enforcement Case Heads to Trial
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 9, 2026
Ruling rejects the Pennsylvania-owned utility’s constitutional challenge to the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD) and preserves the District’s counterclaims over years of excess pumping during drought
WIMBERLEY, Texas, Sept. 9, 2026 — A federal judge has dismissed nine of 11 remaining legal claims, and related claims for attorneys’ fees, Aqua Texas, Inc. brought against its groundwater regulator. At the same time, the Court preserved for trial nearly all of the District’s counterclaims for violating the District’s rules. Those claims accuse Aqua Texas of overpumping groundwater, including during times of extreme drought.
In a ruling issued August 24, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra considered separate motions for summary judgment filed by both parties in Aqua Texas, Inc. v. Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (No. 1:23-CV-01576-DAE, Western District of Texas). The ruling guts nearly all of Aqua Texas’s legal challenges to the District’s authority.
Aqua Texas, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based Essential Utilities, Inc., filed the lawsuit in December 2023 after the HTGCD offered to settle Aqua Texas’ 2022 overpumping violations for $448,710 in lieu of seeking civil penalties in district court. Aqua’s suit challenges the District’s authority to regulate groundwater in the Texas Hill Country and seeks injunctive relief and monetary damages. The Court had previously dismissed Aqua’s due process claims and claims brought against the District’s directors in their official capacity.
“This ruling gives the Wimberley Valley community an important victory in the battle against Aqua Texas and its decades-long mismanagement of our water systems,” said Louie Bond, executive chair of Say No To Aqua Texas. “We are grateful to the court for seeing Aqua’s egregious claims for what they are.”
BY THE NUMBERS
- 9 of 11: Aqua Texas’ remaining claims dismissed by the court
- 1: Aqua Texas claim left standing, a Texas Open Meetings Act/Texas Water Code rulemaking claim the court found not proven by summary judgment evidence
- Nearly all: District counterclaims preserved for trial, including the central claims for overpumping
- Aqua Texas subject to civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day of violation for years of violations of the District’s rules, including $448,710, which Aqua Texas refused to pay the District to settle its 2022 overpumping violations
- Nearly 238 million gallons: pumping by Aqua Texas in excess of its permits between 2022 and 2024, by the District’s accounting, and additional overpumping in 2025
- 222 days: the number of days Jacob’s Well went dry in 2022. The spring has not returned to consistent flow since.
WHAT THE COURT DID
The Court dismissed Aqua’s claims, finding that the District:
- did not exceed its statutory authority by instituting a permitting moratorium or assessing overpumping fines;
- did not exceed its authority in enforcing waste and line-loss rules;
- did not violate the federal Equal Protection Clause;
- did not effect an unconstitutional taking through its permitting moratorium or its treatment of the utility’s test wells; and
- did not fail to meet Texas Open Meetings Act notice requirements.
The Court preserved for trial, after the opportunity to consider more evidence, the question of whether the District violated certain TOMA and Chapter 36 rulemaking requirement.
The Court also dismissed Aqua’s related claims for attorneys’ fees and costs tied to its equal-protection theories but preserved claims for attorneys’ fees related to the TOMA claim.
The Court has also preserved the District’s counterclaims asserting that:
- Aqua pumped groundwater in excess of its permits;
- Aqua has failed to timely file required pumping reports with the District;
- Aqua has failed to cap or plug wells or failed to notify the district of capping-and-plugging; and
- the District is entitled to its attorneys’ fees and costs incurred.
Of the claims under consideration, Aqua prevailed on two narrow points: the Court agreed that the HTGCD cannot apply its groundwater waste rule to sewage and wastewater spills and dismissed the portion of the District’s counterclaims based on pumping under expired permits.
“Nearly all of Aqua Texas’s claims have been rejected, and the case that matters most, the overjumping of our groundwater during a historic drought, is headed to trial. Our neighbors have said all along that Aqua Texas should follow the same rules as everyone else. The court just cleared the way for that fight to move forward,” Bond said.
WHY IT MATTERS
The ruling is a setback for a years-long effort by an out-of-state utility to use federal court to limit the reach of a local Texas groundwater district. Groundwater conservation districts are the primary institutions Texas relies on to manage and protect its aquifers.
The outcome preserves the District’s ability to hold Aqua Texas accountable for excess pumping, along with other violations of the District’s rules.
With Aqua’s constitutional and most other legal theories dismissed, HTGCD’s overpumping and other rules violations counterclaims now move toward trial, where the volume of water the utility drew from the Trinity Aquifer will be squarely at issue.
BACKGROUND
Aqua Texas serves roughly 3,000 customers in the Wimberley and Woodcreek area of Hays County and is the largest Texas subsidiary of Essential Utilities, Inc., the second-largest investor-owned water utility in the U.S. The HTGCD regulates groundwater use in western Hays County, including the Trinity Aquifer that feeds Jacob’s Well and Cypress Creek, some of the most significant natural springs in the Texas Hill Country.
The federal case is one of several proceedings involving Aqua Texas, including a contested rate case before the Public Utility Commission of Texas (Docket No. 58124) and a separate Public Utility Commission complaint seeking to restrict the utility’s service authority.
About Say No to Aqua Texas
Say No to Aqua Texas (SNTAT) is a coalition of Wimberley Valley residents, landowners, business owners, scientists, attorneys, and local officials working to stop Aqua Texas’s over-pumping and return the region’s water and wastewater systems to local control.
Media Contact:
Suzanne Geiger