.gif)
With the region’s water supply lakes below full, the Lower Colorado River Authority on Tuesday reminded residents of the importance of conserving water as we head into what is expected to be another hot, dry summer.
“Thanks to rains in May, our water supplies are in better shape than they were a year ago, but lakes Buchanan and Travis are still not full,” said John Hofmann, LCRA executive vice president of Water, “The lakes remain stressed from years of serious drought, and we all should do our part to conserve and stop water waste.”
On Tuesday, combined storage in lakes Buchanan and Travis, the two water supply reservoirs in the Highland Lakes, stood at 1.1 million acre-feet, or about 55% of capacity. A year ago, combined storage stood at 1.005 million acre-feet, or about 50.4% of capacity.
“The greatest user of water in the summer months is outdoor watering,” Hofmann said. “Up to 70% of the municipal water used during the summer is used outdoors, so cutting back on how much water goes outdoors can make a significant difference in our overall water supplies. We can’t control evaporation, but we can – and absolutely should – control how much water we use.”
Though LCRA and some local water providers allow watering up to twice a week under current conditions, LCRA encourages people to water no more than once a week.
“As my mother used to say, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should,” Hofmann said. “So in this case, even though watering may be allowed twice a week, we strongly recommend people stick to watering once a week. Watering less frequently is a more efficient use of water and encourages a deeper root system, which helps protect plants as topsoil dries out during hotter weather.”
LCRA recommends following these water-saving tips:
• Follow local watering rules, and water yards only on designated days before 10 a.m. or after 7 p.m. to reduce evaporation.
• Use water-efficient landscaping and drought-tolerant plants.
Cover swimming pools when not in use.
• Add mulch to landscapes and compost to turf to help prevent water loss.
Visit www.WaterSmart.org for more water-saving tips, tools and resources.
LCRA in Stage 1 of its drought response
LCRA is in Stage 1 of its drought response. Under Stage 1 conditions, LCRA allows landscape watering up to twice a week for domestic use customers that have a contract with LCRA to draw water directly from the Highland Lakes. LCRA requests its customers reduce water use by 10% and that its firm water customers, which primarily are cities, utilities and industries, implement mandatory water use restrictions. Firm customers set their own watering schedules, but may not allow watering more than twice a week.
LCRA projections show that if July and August are extremely hot and dry, combined storage in lakes Buchanan and Travis could fall below 900,000 acre-feet, or 45% of capacity, which would trigger Stage 2 drought response and maximum once-a-week watering, by the fall.
No water for most agricultural customers this year
Because of the ongoing drought, no water from the Highland Lakes has been available to most LCRA agricultural customers in Wharton, Colorado and Matagorda counties since the second agricultural growing season in 2022.
Customers in the Gulf Coast, Lakeside and Pierce Ranch operations purchase “interruptible water,” which is curtailed or cut back during droughts under LCRA’s state-approved Water Management Plan.
LCRA determines the availability of stored water from the Highland Lakes for most interruptible customers twice a year – on March 1 and July 1. If no water is available on the March evaluation date, no water from the Highland Lakes will be available after the July 1 evaluation either. On March 1, LCRA determined that no water from the lakes would be available to most interruptible customers for the year.
The next time water from lakes Buchanan and Travis could be available to customers in those operations is after the March 1, 2025, evaluation date.
Customers in the Garwood Agricultural Division are entitled to interruptible water from the Highland Lakes this year under terms of the 1998 purchase agreement for the Garwood water rights.
