Slowly, surely, Texas emerging from drought
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Baked by drought, livestock feed ponds around Central Texas were, at best, muddy bogs late last summer. Farmers were considering abandoning staple crops like sorghum and corn, so wilted were they from the heat. Ranchers were forced to buy pricey hay for their cattle, because the grass they normally ate had been scorched. Agencies charged with looking after the state's water threatened to fine people who filled swimming pools or washed their automobiles.
But last week the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, which supplies water to about 50,000 people in northern Hays County and southern Travis County, quietly decided to do something that seems intuitive after all the recent rains: It said the area is no longer suffering through drought. For now, at least.
Pumping restrictions have been suspended in the conservation district, and it is not alone. The Edwards Aquifer Authority, which manages groundwater for 1.7 million people, has taken a similar step. In Boerne, the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District has also scaled back its drought restrictions.
The Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, like many other water authorities, has automatic triggers in place to determine whether the area is in a drought.
Barton Springs, for instance, is flowing at about 75 cubic feet per second, well above the drought trigger of 38 cubic feet per second, and even above its average rate for this time of year.
Another indicator, the water level at the Lovelady monitor well (near South First Street and Stassney Lane), is just above its drought trigger, which is 180.8 feet below the land surface.
While winter months tend to be wetter and demand is often as little as half what it is in summer, indications are that Texas — especially Central Texas — is clawing its way out of a drought. One year ago, less than 1 percent of Texas could have been termed normal, in terms of drought conditions.
By last week, more than 50 percent of the state was experiencing normal conditions, according to the national drought mitigation center. On the flip side, a year ago 12.7 percent of the state was suffering through exceptional drought, the worst rating possible; last week that number was down to 2.1 percent.
Rainfall is about 7 inches above average this year in the Austin area..
"The long-range outlooks are near normal rain for spring, and the long-range models show at or above normal rainfall in the summer," said Bob Rose, a meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority. "We could be in store for a wetter than normal year."
Authorities still urge water conservation because drought could return as weather turns hotter and demand climbs. Homeowners should repair leaks on sprinkler systems and water lawns no more than once every five days.
"The aquifer is still in peril, as far I'm concerned," said Kirk Holland, general manager of the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District. "We're not out of danger yet."
Rose said that even though drought may have been broken in terms of rainfall and agricultural use, the area is still in a "hydrological drought." Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan, which provide water for more than 1 million people in Central Texas, are still below average levels.
But even that statistic contains some good news. Three weeks ago, the Lake Travis level was 646 feet; by Saturday it will be up to 664 feet, Rose predicted. The normal average monthly level for March is 671.5 feet.
"The creeks are running," said Joe Day, a board member of the Hays-Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, which serves Hays County. "The way it works is if your dry creeks are running, you're recharging your aquifers."
The drought, which the Barton Springs/ Edwards Aquifer Conservation District says began in October 2005, has been devastating.
More money had dried up than the $2.1 billion lost during a 1998 drought, Texas Cooperative Extension economists reported last summer. Crop losses had been estimated at $2.5 billion, and losses from livestock, underfed and rushed to market, were pegged at $1.6 billion. Wheat yields per acre in Texas had been the lowest since the 1920s.
In the Austin area, things were so dry in September 2006 that the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District ordered its customers to cut water use by a third and to irrigate lawns only with hand-held hoses.
Not all districts have been bold enough to declare the drought over. The Cow Creek Water Conservation District in Boerne, a Hill Country town near Bandera, had gone so far as ordering the roughly 40,000 people it serves to use water essentially only to cook, drink and shower. Now they can water their lawns once a week.
Scaling back restrictions has a political purpose: Keeping them in place could be tantamount to crying wolf, said Paul Babb, a technician at the Johnson City-based Blanco-Pedernales Groundwater Conservation District, where restrictions were relaxed earlier this year.
"We felt like it would be prudent to lift drought restrictions, so when we need to have them, they would have a bigger impact," Babb said.
asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643
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