If Lower Colorado River Authority’s Chief Meteorologist Bob Rose’s forecast proves true, Central Texas’ drought will continue through the summer months with high temperatures alongside little rainfall. In a worst-case scenario, Highland Lakes water storage would become half empty by October—not its historic low, but well below last year’s levels, according to LCRA.

“Much of Texas is covered in drought. Our area right now is in severe drought and both sides of [Central Texas] now have received [the designation] extreme drought—from the College Station area and to our west,” Rose said. “Overall, this is looking to be a pretty brutal summer, I think.”

The Highland Lakes include Lake Travis, Lake Austin, Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake LBJ and Lake Marble Falls.

Reading the latest Climate Forecast System model, Rose said the projection showed Texas with little rain through June, and returning more or less to neutral between July and September, with warmer-than-usual temperatures until early fall.

The drought is not expected to deplete the lake’s stores enough to prevent LCRA customers’ access to water, but it may affect residents in other ways, such as recreation and watering lawns.

“There’s a lot riding on this, as far as lake recreation and many other things,” Rose said.

About LCRA

A nonprofit agency created by the Texas Legislature, the LCRA is funded by ratepayers on a cost-of-service basis and does not have the authority to collect taxes. In addition to managing the lower Colorado River, generating and selling electric power, operating parks and supporting local economic development, the LCRA provides water to many municipalities in the region, as well as to municipal utility districts, farmers, power plants and businesses. About 6 percent to 7 percent of its revenue comes from water-related services, while about 93 percent of its revenue comes from electricity generation.

Effects of the drought

While LCRA officials said the lake will have plenty of water to serve its customers, it may have to ask cities to restrict water usage during the summer months.

“We’re expecting a continued dry spring into the summer. We’ll manage our way through that and have plenty of water for water supply, but it will affect lake levels,” LCRA General Manager Tom Mason said. “I don’t think it will be as bad or as extreme as it was two years ago.”

The City of Austin, LCRA’s largest water customer, already voluntarily restricts lawn watering year-round. Austin’s stage 1 water-use restrictions are in effect, and residences and businesses alike must not water lawns, except by hand, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and must follow a watering schedule based on whether the residence’s address ends on an odd or even number. Violators can be charged with a Class C misdemeanor with a fine up to $500.

Flooding

Although Central Texas is in a drought, that does not rule out possible flooding, which often follows droughts, LCRA Executive Manager Suzanne Zarling said.

“We operate in a cycle of feast or famine in Central Texas—feast when we get floods and famine when we get droughts. From a water supply standpoint, we consider we’re in a drought any time the lakes aren’t full, so we operate in a perpetual state of drought occasionally punctuated by a flood,” Zarling said.

According to the National Weather Service, Central Texas is within Flash Flood Alley, which means it is one of the regions in the United States with the greatest risk of flooding.

When land is severely dry, sudden rainfall is not absorbed by soil and runoff can create flooding.

LCRA manages droughts and floods by regulating dams between the Highland Lakes.

Fire safety

Because dry weather can allow fires to spread quickly, local municipalities have been approving burn bans.

Travis County Commissioners Court passed a burn ban prohibiting outdoor burning, in effect in all of its unincorporated areas, at the time of this printing.

On April 22, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department began temporarily prohibiting the building of fires and smoking in the City of Austin Parks and Recreation system to minimize fire hazards.

The LCRA has also enacted more restrictive burn bans in its parks. Until further notice, no open flames are allowed at LCRA parks even within fire rings or above-ground barbecue pits. Visitors will be allowed to cook on camp stoves, such as gas grills.

LCRA spokeswoman Clara Tuma said the ban culminated for a variety of reasons.

“It’s knowing how dry it is, it’s looking in the forecast and seeing there’s no rain on the horizon, and it’s seeing what happened when you get a spark,” Tuma said. “We’ve seen other parts of the state go up in flames and we certainly want to protect, not only LCRA parks, but our visitors and our neighbors.”

This is the first time the LCRA has made this sort of ban for all its parks at once.

Extra water storage

On April 20, a permit was granted to LCRA by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that allows it to capture water from the Colorado River downstream of Austin into a reservoir. If the LCRA decides to build reservoirs to capture excess rainfall, the reserves could relieve the Highland Lakes during a drought.

At this time, LCRA has not appropriated money or developed site plans for reservoirs.

“This is the first step in the process,” Tuma said. “If LCRA ends up building off-channel reservoirs, that will allow us to be more efficient with water in the Colorado River. It means we would have to release less water from the Highland Lakes, because some of the downstream needs could be met by some of that water captured downstream.”

The permit allows LCRA to build reservoirs in Wharton, Colorado and Matagorda counties for a total yearly capacity of 853,514 acre-feet of water—just less than the amount of water needed to fill Lake Buchanan.

Managing water

The LCRA is undergoing an update of its Water Management Plan. The plan’s purpose is to ensure LCRA has a long-term plan to meet its major water users’ demands by distributing water during water shortages. The latest version of the plan was approved in January 2010, and a 16-member advisory commitee is working with LCRA to re-evaluate aspects of its plan, including how much water should always be available in storage and how to determine if a drought is potentially worse than the drought of record in the 1950s. Public input is expected to be sought in summer 2012, with a final report sent to TCEQ in fall 2012.