With the region's major water supply reservoirs declining every day, officials with Windermere Oaks Water Supply Corp. may have to abandon their Lake Travis pump and pipeline and use trucks to get water to residents.

"We estimate that we'll be out of water by November or the end of October if there is no rain," said George Burris, who manages water operations in Windermere, a small water supplier with 230 connections in a subdivision along Lake Travis in southeastern Burnet County, near the county line with Travis.

Burris and Kerry Spradley, president of Windermere Oaks WSC, said their water supply corporation gets water from a barge in Lake Travis, which has been dropping about two feet a week. But with the lake at 631.8 feet above mean sea level–50 feet below the level LCRA considers "full" and its third-lowest level in history—the pump on a barge is sucking increasingly poor quality turbid water and soon will come up dry. Windermere isn't the only community in the same boat: nearby retail water supplies operated by Lower Colorado River Authority also will run out of water, Burris said.

LCRA officials later said that LCRA anticipates if there is no significant rainfall it may need to truck water in as soon as October for about 420 customers of its Ridge Harbor Water System, while customers of its Smithwick Mills Water System may be spared trucking in water. LCRA is "talking with Windermere Oaks about sharing resources" to jointly truck water, spokeswoman Emlea Chanslor said in a written statement.

Currently the Windermere's residents are under mandatory "stage four" water restrictions, limiting customers to 7,000 gallons a month. The next trigger point, when the Lake Travis falls to 630 feet msl, its plant is shut down and residents' water use is rationed, cut off at 2,500 gallons a month.