Posted: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:23 PM - 15,418 Readers

By: James Walker

Burnet County commissioners Tuesday extended the burn ban for unincorporated areas of the county by 90 days as the numbing drought that that is drying up local water supplies continues unabated.

"It's still incredibly dry out there," Burnet County Environmental Services Director Herb Darling told county commissioners at their meeting Tuesday.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Joe Don Dockery lamented the almost negligible amount of inflows into Lake Buchanan, which along with Lake Travis are reservoir lakes at each end of the Highland Lakes that provide drinking water for more than 1.2 million people in Central Texas as well as for agricultural and industrial purposes for downstream customers.

"There are a lot of zeros there," Dockery said as he studied the Lower Colorado River Authority's Hydromet Data Map on it's website, which tracks real-time inflows into the Colorado River and the lakes.

An increasing number of livestock owners who have not sold their animals are resorting to burning prickly pear and using it as a food source, a practice that remains legal under the burn ban's agriculture exception, Darling said.