Posted: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:34 AM - 9,023 Readers
By: Chuck Lindell
photo by Austin-American StatesmanSpurred by lake levels that remain distressingly low despite recent heavy rains, the Lower Colorado River Authority will consider temporarily halting new water sales until drought conditions ease.
The moratorium, the first of its kind to be considered by the agency's board of directors, is designed to protect water supplies already promised to cities and industrial users along the Colorado River, General Manager Tom Mason said Monday.
"We really do want to protect those folks we've already committed to. We want to deliver that water," Mason said.
The proposal, which will be considered Nov. 10, would not affect cities or industrial users with existing water contracts, including Austin.
"If you have purchased water, that's fine. If you want new water contracts, we will recommend to the board of directors that we temporarily put those on hold until the lakes significantly (rise)," LCRA spokesman Robert Cullick said. "We're trying to not increase demand on the river and lakes."
Three pending contracts would be frozen under the proposed moratorium, including increases in water supplies sought by Horseshoe Bay and Kingsland — both of which pumped more water last year than allowed under their LCRA contracts.
A moratorium is expected to have little impact because both Lake LBJ-area communities will be guaranteed to receive the same amount they pumped last year, said Karen Bondy, the LCRA's manager of river services.
Earl Foster, general manager of the Kingsland Water Supply Corp., agreed.
"It's not going to hurt us," Foster said. "In fact, it will even benefit Kingsland because we will not have to pay a reservation fee" to secure rights to water that won't be needed for several years.
The third contract that could be suspended is for a Matagorda County power plant that is still working through the state permitting process.
Despite recent rains, the current drought is the most intense dry spell ever experienced by the LCRA, forcing the agency to reassess its water management plan, which was built on a key promise — that cities and industries will have guaranteed water during a repeat of the worst drought on record, a decade-long dry spell that ended in 1957.
However, Central Texas has received so little rain over the past three years that Lakes Travis and Buchanan — the region's water-supply reservoirs — have emptied even faster than they did during the drought of record, Mason said.
When Monday's downpour finishes draining downstream by week's end, the LCRA projects that the two lakes will be holding a total of 980,000 to 990,000 acre-feet of water — well below the 2 million acre-feet held when the lakes are full.
"Those lakes are still less than half full at the end of October, traditionally a rainy month," Mason said. "We're in a real hole."
More important, the storage is about 300,000 acre-feet below where it would be in a repeat of the 1950s drought, prompting the river authority to contemplate the moratorium on new water contracts. The deficit equals about 98 billion gallons, or enough to refill Lake Austin 14 times.
The moratorium would remain in place until that 300,000-acre-foot deficit is erased, LCRA officials said.
The LCRA will consider the moratorium despite favorable forecasts for a wetter-than-average fall and winter, thanks to the Pacific Ocean's warm water phenomenon known as El Niño.
"Wishful thinking is not good water planning," said Mason, noting that one massive storm in 1952 raised the level of Lake Travis more than 50 feet in one day, but the rainfall was merely a blip in a long and devastating drought.
In August, water stored in Lakes Travis and Buchanan fell below 900,000 acre-feet, prompting the LCRA to call on all of its water customers to impose mandatory lawn-watering restrictions in hopes of cutting water use by 25 percent.
Next year, the LCRA also might cut water for users with "interruptable" contracts, including rice farmers in counties closer to the Gulf of Mexico.
Water use by cities, however, would not be curtailed unless the lakes fell to 600,000 acre-feet, when the LCRA board would implement across-the-board cuts of 10 percent to 35 percent in water use.
