Nov. 25, 2025 – The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality violated constitutional or statutory provisions and made decisions outside its authority, through unlawful procedure or affected by other error of law when it granted a wastewater permit for Lennar Corp.’s proposed Guajolote Ranch development, according to a motion for rehearing filed Monday.
In the 115-page motion including attachments, attorneys for the permit’s opponents also charged that TCEQ’s actions were not reasonably supported by substantial and reliable evidence, and were “arbitrary and capricious characterized by an abuse of discretion or clearly unwarranted exercise of discretion.”
The filing was in response to the three-member commission’s decision on Oct. 22, and signed on Oct. 28, for Lennar contractor Municipal Operations LLC to operate a wastewater plant to serve 2,900 homes on 1,160 acres of Guajolote Ranch in northwest Bexar County, and discharge an average of 1 million gallons per day of treated sewage into the Helotes Creek watershed. The amount could reach 4 million gallons on any given day.
That watershed directly recharges the Trinity Glen Rose Aquifer, the water supply for the immediate area, and contributes up to 15% of the total recharge of the Edwards Aquifer, principal water source for about 2.5 million people across multiple counties.
The attorneys representing the aligned contestants in the case – the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance and the city of Grey Forest – are requesting that the commission set Municipal Operations’ permit application for rehearing and, upon rehearing, deny the permit. Landowner Ann Toepperwein, whose property abuts Guajolote Ranch and who also was granted standing to contest, was aligned with GEAA’s representation.
The commission could elect to grant the rehearing request, but if it doesn’t respond in 30 days, then its decision stands. At that point, the opponents would have another 30 days to appeal in Travis County district court.
View the full motion, here: https://www.scenicloop.org/wp-content/uploads/2025.11.24-GEAA-GF-Motion-for-Rehearing-w-Attach.pdf
Notable are instances in which due process rights of the contestants were violated, or important evidence was improperly excluded, according to the motion.
In one, the permit applicant’s arguments from a secret settlement agreement between Municipal Operations LLC and the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District were allowed, even though that had been kept from the public prior, including from the protestants. It included plans to “reuse” the effluent by applying it to land, something that wasn’t part of the permit application.
That reuse option “reflected in the settlement agreement between applicant and San Antonio Metropolitan Health creates its own risk of contamination of the underlying karst aquifer, and rapid movement of effluent into Helotes Creek and area wells,” the motion says. “Applicant relied upon this settlement agreement in closing arguments and argument before the commission.
“The consideration of this settlement agreement by the (administrative law judges in the contested case) and the commission without providing aligned protestants with the opportunity to respond violated aligned protestants’ due process rights,” the motion says, “and aligned protestants’ right to present argument and evidence on each issue presented in a hearing” under the Texas Government Code.
The attorneys contend that the reuse option should have been fully evaluated. Contents of the settlement agreement weren’t made public until well after testimony in the contested case had closed, and only then by court order.
In another instance, critical information about area well depths and PFAS “forever chemicals,” from a deposition of F. Paul Bertetti, senior director of aquifer science, research and modeling at the Edwards Aquifer Authority, was excluded.
“During that deposition, the counsel for Municipal Operations was given the opportunity to question Mr. Bertetti, but chose to use that opportunity to engage in persistent harassing examination of the witness, which led to counsel for Mr. Bertetti ending the deposition,” the motion says.
Municipal Operations’ counsel moved to strike the entire deposition, which was granted. The motion’s attachments now include both the Bertetti deposition and the Metro Health settlement agreement.
Throughout the motion, attorneys also contend that the commission improperly allocated the burden of proof to the aligned contestants on many issues.
They argue that the commission committed several errors in relation to the protection of groundwater – requiring no limits on the amount of nitrates in the discharge, for example – and violated its own rules relating to protection of wildlife and endangered species and those requiring consideration of toxicity by refusing to assess potential impacts of PFAS.
They contend that the commission’s dissolved oxygen analysis was flawed for multiple reasons and that the final order was premised on a finding that Helotes Creek is not fishable or swimmable – “despite the fact that residents of Grey Forest … frequently fish and swim within Helotes Creek.” The motion includes photos of residents catching bass and sun perch.
The attorneys note that “Dr. Ron Green provided extensive testimony that groundwater in the area of the proposed discharge is particularly sensitive to groundwater contamination,” and that the contributing zone of the Edwards Aquifer is hydrologically connected to its recharge zone, “allowing minimally diluted contaminants to travel rapidly through the system at a rate of one mile per day.”
Green was a principal author of a comprehensive hydrological study by Southwest Research Institute in 2020, funded through the city of San Antonio’s Edwards Aquifer Protection Plan, which concluded that additional wastewater systems from residential development in the Helotes Creek watershed, regardless of type, would “significantly degrade the watershed and the quality of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer.”
The Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) group representing the largest neighborhood by square mile recognized by the San Antonio Neighborhood & Housing Services Department, a wide corridor along Scenic Loop Road from Bandera Road to north of Babcock Road.
Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance contacts:
Randy Neumann, SL-HCA steering committee chair, 210-867-2826, uhit@aol.com
Steve Lee, 210-415-2402, text; slee_78023@yahoo.com