Posted: Mon, 25 May 2015 09:53 AM - 43,485 Readers

By: Marty Toohey

Regional water officials say that with Saturday’s heavy rainfalls, the Austin-area water supply — like the proverbial glass — is now half-full.

Rainfall that transformed the Pedernales River from a rivulet to raging waterway is draining into the Higland Lakes, including Lake Travis, which has risen 8 feet, with more to come. When Travis is combined with Lake Buchanan, the other half of the two-body main reservoir, the lakes will be at 50 percent capacity, said John Hofmann, executive vice president of water for the Lower Colorado River Authority.

“Generally speaking, we’re better off than we’ve been in a long, long time,” Hofmann said. But, he added, even two years of rainfall has not gotten the region out of a drought — really, more of a water-supply shortage created by the drought that peaked in 2011.



“It’s a testament to how far behind we were that we still haven’t caught up,” Hofmann said. “At this point, it’s more of a hydrological drought than what you think of with things like an agricultural drought. We’re having a water-supply issue.”

At the peak of the drought, lakes Buchanan and Travis were 32 percent full. Hofmann said this year’s rains helped to start to replenish them. But in a measure of how severe the supply shortage had grown, the “Sometimes Islands” — which used to disappear on a regular basis — have remained a peninsula.

Still, Lake Travis is now up 12 feet since May 20 and 22 feet since the start of the year, Hofmann said. The occasional ’70s-era pull-tab beer cans that surfaced as the waters receded are probably again submerged. Video footage shows the islands finally once again becoming an archipelago.



The main reason is that, unlike many other recent rains, this weekend’s storm dropped significant amounts of water in the Hill Country, upstream of Austin. The Pedernales, for the past several years virtually non-existent as it passes under Texas 71 west of Austin, was by Sunday morning a brown torrent that appeared to be 75 to 100 feet wide.

The welcome sight drew a couple of dozen water tourists to the bridge just before noon, people who parked on either end of the long highway bridge and then walked along the shoulder to gawk at the river. Sheriff’s cars were parked at each end with flashing lights.

“This was only a trickle yesterday,” said Don Poucher from the Bee Creek area back toward town.

Likewise, Lake Georgetown and Canyon Lake are now full, according to spokespeople for the agencies that oversee them.

“Before we high-five too much, though,” Hofmann said, “we should remember that Lake Travis is not full, Lake Buchanan is not full.”

*  Story Contributed by: Marty Toohey