Steven Siebert stood in front of San Antonio's Municipal Utilities Committee on May 27, 2025, with charts showing the worst drought in modern history. Four days earlier, the Edwards Aquifer Authority had declared Stage 5 restrictions for the first time since they started managing the aquifer in 1993. The water source for more than 2 million people had dropped to 624.7 feet above sea level—its lowest level since 1990, more than 41 feet below the historical average for May.
"This is about as bad as a drought can get. What we are experiencing today."
He's SAWS' manager of water resources. He walked the committee through the deficit: 55 inches of rainfall since 2020 when this drought began. They would need about 25 more rain events like yesterday's storm—the one that brought flooding and hail to San Antonio—to pull back to average conditions. Just to reach average.
Under Stage 5, the 1,233 permit holders authorized to pump from the aquifer had to cut their withdrawals by 44%. Municipal utilities, industries, irrigation permit holders—everyone could only use 56% of their permitted amounts. The Edwards Aquifer Authority doesn't regulate lawn watering or customer restrictions. They regulate the permit holders who pump from the aquifer. So when they say cut by 44%, that's what the utilities and farmers and industrial users have to figure out how to do.
SAWS? Serving 1.8 million people across seven counties? They kept customer restrictions at Stage 3. Same as before. Landscape watering once per week, 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight on designated days. No tightening.
Karen Guz, SAWS vice president of conservation, told the committee that "current conservation efforts have been successful through education, community outreach and enforcement."
I keep trying to imagine what it feels like to be in that room. Siebert presenting numbers that show the aquifer at its lowest level in 35 years. Explaining that this is as bad as a drought can get. Then Guz reporting successful conservation efforts. Then the announcement that customer restrictions won't change despite the unprecedented Edwards restrictions.
The explanation is infrastructure. SAWS still gets more than half their supply from the Edwards Aquifer, but they also have the Vista Ridge pipeline, the Carrizo Aquifer, their own desalination plant, recycled water, aquifer storage and recovery sites. When the Edwards Aquifer Authority cut their permitted pumping by 44%, SAWS shifted to other sources. Twenty years of diversification meant they could absorb what should have been crisis without customers feeling it.
When a utility successfully prepares for climate change, catastrophe becomes invisible to those it serves—visible to everyone else drawing from the same source.
You build redundancy. You diversify your portfolio. You create systems that can absorb the worst drought in modern history without operational pain for the people you serve.
The 1,233 permit holders got those Stage 5 restrictions. Some of them have portfolios to diversify. New Braunfels Utilities does—they maintained Stage 2 customer rules because they haven't relied on a single source since 1985. Irrigation permit holders in Medina County, Uvalde County? Small utilities serving a few thousand people? Industrial users who need specific volumes for operations? Different story.
| Date | Restriction Stage | Required Cuts |
|---|---|---|
| May 23, 2025 | Stage 5 declared | 44% reduction |
| May 30, 2025 | Downgraded to Stage 4 | 40% reduction |
| June 11, 2025 | Downgraded to Stage 3 | 35% reduction |
The Stage 5 restrictions lasted one week. On May 26, a thunderstorm brought flooding rain. By May 30, the Edwards Aquifer Authority downgraded to Stage 4. By June 11, back to Stage 3. One storm moved the needle enough to ease restrictions from 44% cuts to 40% cuts to 35% cuts.
Siebert had said they needed 25 more rain events to reach average conditions. One storm wasn't 25 storms. The drought that began in 2020 didn't end. As of January 2026, the J-17 well measured 628.7 feet above mean sea level. Still under restrictions. The last time the aquifer authority had no limits was March 2022.
I've been looking for the other permit holders. The ones who had to make the 44% cuts without portfolios to shift between. The irrigation users who had to calculate 56% of their permitted amount and figure out which fields go fallow. Uvalde County permit holders had been in Stage 5 since August 2024 —nearly a year before the San Antonio Pool reached the same level. A PBS interview in January 2025 mentioned that farmers in Uvalde and Medina County "need groundwater to think about how much water they'll be needing for the year." But no names, no operational details, no documentation of what a year under Stage 5 actually meant for them.
The public record doesn't have them. Local news coverage from the past nine months, agricultural publications, utility reports—the documentation focuses elsewhere. The institutional responses from SAWS and New Braunfels Utilities are documented in detail—committee presentations, press releases, customer notifications. The farmers? The small utilities without diversified portfolios?
What does it mean when infrastructure makes catastrophe invisible to some while others presumably still feel it, but we can't find them to ask?
That committee meeting stays with me. Siebert standing there explaining that this is about as bad as a drought can get. Then explaining that SAWS customers won't feel it because they built systems that could absorb the worst.
Somewhere in those nine months, 1,233 permit holders made decisions about how to cut their water use by 40-44%. Some of them had other sources to shift to. Some of them didn't. The decisions that made it into the committee presentation came from one group. The documented responses in the public record of the worst drought in modern history came from the same group.
I'm following this. Looking for the permit holders who had to make the cuts without portfolios to absorb them. Trying to understand what "as bad as a drought can get" means when you're standing in a committee meeting explaining that nobody will notice.
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Austin's parallel crisis: The Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District entered Stage 3 Exceptional Drought in October 2025 —only the second time in its 38-year history—and by December was approaching Stage 4 thresholds with officials warning this drought is "approaching potentially being our new drought of record."
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Uvalde's year-long restrictions: Permit holders in Uvalde County had already been operating under Stage 5 restrictions since August 2024, nearly a year before the San Antonio Pool reached the same level, yet no public documentation exists of how agricultural users there adapted to sustained 44% cuts.
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The 1950s comparison: The May 2025 aquifer levels matched the 1950s drought of record, when the J-17 well reached its lowest historical reading since measurements began in 1932, raising questions about whether current infrastructure can handle conditions that may now represent the new normal rather than exceptional crisis.
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Monthly reporting requirements: All municipal, industrial and irrigation permit holders must submit withdrawal reports monthly during critical periods, with reconciliation at year's end to ensure compliance—creating a paper trail of who cut what that exists somewhere in EAA records but hasn't surfaced in public coverage.