San Antonio Water System

Vista Ridge Project

In 2014, the SAWS Board of Trustees and San Antonio City Council approved what is now the largest non-Edwards Aquifer water supply project in our region’s history.

The Vista Ridge Pipeline Project consists of a 142-mile pipeline that parallels the I-35 corridor delivering water from wells in Burleson County and supplying water to over 200,000 households in San Antonio. Approximately 77% of the water is produced from wells in the Simsboro Aquifer while the remaining 23% of the water is produced from Carrizo Aquifer wells.

This project is a first of its kind partnership in Texas which merges the strengths of public utility and private industry. SAWS has a contract with Vista Ridge LLC (VR) to purchase up to 50,000 AFY* of Simsboro and Carrizo Aquifer groundwater, which will help meet ~20% of SAWS’ demand.

In addition to the construction of the Vista Ridge pipeline, SAWS has constructed the infrastructure needed to integrate the water to the rest of the system at the Agua Vista site in Northern Bexar County. The facility conditions and treats approximately 48 MGD (Million Gallons per Day) of water to match Edwards Aquifer water quality. This supply came online in April 2020.

Vista Ridge provides a resilient supply and represents a major achievement for our community in water supply diversification.

* 23% of the total Vista Ridge water distributed came from the Carrizo aquifer

Terms

Firm yield – The volume of water which can be produced from a defined source during a repeat of the drought of record under existing regulatory, legal, contractual, hydrological or infrastructure constraints

AFY – 1 acre-foot per year = 325,851 gallons per year