The heavy rains that hit Central Texas last week pushed Lake Travis up by about 10 inches, but the lake still sits about 43 feet below its average for this time of the year because of the severe drought.
To fill those 43 feet, it would take enough water to cover all 1,022 square miles of Travis County more than 9 inches deep.
“The recent rain was great and much needed, but no one should be fooled into thinking the drought is over,” LCRA General Manager Becky Motal said. “The rain helped lawns and helped trees, and made the lakes go up a little. But we are going to need a historic deluge or a lot of rain over a long period of time to break this drought.”
LCRA is strongly encouraging everyone to conserve water wherever possible.
“Everyone should make sure they are using water wisely,” Motal said. “It’s very important for everyone to closely follow watering restrictions in their local areas. No one knows when this drought will end, and we all play a role in conserving water to help preserve our water supply.”
Central Texas is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in the region’s history. Several years of low rainfall have dried up many of the region’s rivers and creeks and reduced the amount of water flowing into the Highland Lakes, called inflows, to a fraction of its average. June inflows, for example, were only 3.5 percent of average.
Lakes Travis and Buchanan are the water supply reservoirs in the Highland Lakes. They provide water for more than a million Central Texans and to businesses and industries throughout the lower Colorado River basin. Lake Buchanan, which is upstream of Lake Travis, rose about 14 inches from the recent storms, but is still about 24 feet below average for this time of year.
Combined, the lakes hold a little more than 2 million acre-feet of water when full, but they are currently 36 percent full and hold about 730,000 acre-feet. The recent rains resulted in an additional 20,000 acre-feet in lakes Travis and Buchanan, or less than 2 percent of the water needed to fill them. An acre-foot is a standard measurement for large quantities of water. It is a little less than 326,000 gallons of water, or the amount of water it takes to cover an acre of land with a foot of water.
Because of the drought, LCRA’s Board of Directors has taken historic action to cut off Highland Lakes water to most downstream farmers in 2012 and 2013. That’s the first and second times the farmers have been cut off since the Texas Legislature created LCRA in 1934.
LCRA is aggressively pursuing new water supplies. It is drilling wells on property it owns in Bastrop County and building a new reservoir downstream of Austin in Wharton County that should be completed by 2017.
“We’re not going to run out of water, but nature has created a serious situation,” Motal said. "We’re taking the steps necessary to make it through this drought, even if it lasts a long time. At the same time, we’re planning to meet the future water needs of a growing area.”
July’s storms brought 2 to 4 inches of rain to much of the Hill Country and as much as 8 inches of rain in isolated spots. Even so, rainfall is below normal for the year throughout Central Texas and the lower Colorado River basin.
Below average rainfall has resulted in near record-low inflows for several years:
·2011 inflows were the lowest in history at about 10 percent of average;
·2012 inflows were the fifth lowest in history at about 32 percent of average; and
·2013 inflows were tracking near the all-time low set in 2011 before the modest improvement from the recent rains.
LCRA has been working with its industrial and municipal customers to conserve water wherever possible. LCRA urges everyone in the region to use water wisely and conserve wherever they can. Everyone should strictly follow the watering schedules set by their local water providers. These generally limit the time of day and days of the week that you can water your lawn and landscaping with a sprinkler system. Most systems in the region limit watering to a maximum of two days a week or less. Check with your local water provider for more information. For tips on how to conserve water, see www.watersmart.org.
“Everyone in the region shares the water of the Highland Lakes and the lower Colorado River,” Motal said. “Nature started this drought, and nature will end it, but everyone plays a part in helping us get through.”
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