Posted: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:00 AM - 12,189 Readers
By: Asher Price
photography by Laura Skelding
In the latest sign of how dry the recent drought has been, Lower Colorado River Authority officials announced Wednesday that the flow of water from streams and creeks into the Colorado River over the past six months is worse than any similar period during the worst-ever drought.
The flow from Oct. 1 through March 31 totaled 96,350 acre-feet. The average inflow during any given month between 1947 and 1952, known as the drought of record, was about 43,300 acre-feet, or 260,000 acre-feet over a six-month period, according to LCRA officials.
An acre-foot is roughly equal to the amount of water required to cover a football field a foot deep — nearly 326,000 gallons.
"These numbers are startling," said Mark Jordan, the LCRA's manager of river management services. April to date has 6 percent of its average in-flow.
When full, Lakes Travis and Buchanan, the main drinking reservoirs for Central Texas, hold just over 2 million acre-feet.
If the area does not get spring rains, combined storage could drop to 1.4 million acre-feet as early as May, triggering a request from the LCRA to its municipal and industrial customers, including the City of Austin, to voluntarily reduce water use by 5 percent.
Relief is unlikely to come soon.
Though May is Central Texas' rainiest month, long-term forecasts suggest rainfall will be below normal into June, said Bob Rose, chief meteorologist at the LCRA.
"We have now gone for over six months without any soaking rain in this area," Rose said. "As a result, the ground has gotten very hard, and windy hot days have pulled much of the moisture out of the ground. It could take several rains to first saturate soil before we have runoff."
Groundwater has taken a hit, too, as underground aquifers have been slow to replenish.
On Monday, the Edwards Aquifer Authority declared that permit holders cut pumping from the aquifer by 20 percent. The authority manages groundwater for 1.7 million people, most of them in the San Antonio area, but also in Hays, Caldwell and Comal counties.
And on Tuesday, the City of San Marcos announced watering restrictions, also due to declining levels of the Edwards Aquifer.
The San Marcos rules limit outdoor lawn watering and at-home car washing to once a week, with other restrictions on pools, fountains, and other uses.
Austin residents continue to operate under water restrictions that limit watering to twice a week.
