Texas experienced severe droughts and record heat over the summer, and, despite recent rainfall, many communities in the state still face low water levels.
New Braunfels, McAllen, and Brownsville are three such Texas cities that had to put water restrictions in place in response to low reservoir levels.
New Braunfels has only clocked 7 inches of rain so far this year, 13 inches less than it should have, Community Impact reported.
The Edwards Aquifer water reservoir, which supplies water to over 2.5 million people, is at historically low levels.
Roland Ruiz, the Edwards Aquifer Authority general manager, said it would be difficult to come out of drought conditions without significant rain.
“Short of significant rainfall between now and the start of next year, we’re going to find ourselves where we are today, except earlier in the year,” Ruiz told Community Impact. “Because we may not come out of any stage of critical period if we don’t have rainfall.”
New Braunfels put in place Stage 3 Restrictions, which limits the use of an irrigation system or sprinklers to once every other day.
The chief strategic communications and security officer for New Braunfels Utilities, Melissa Krause, told Community Impact that she and her colleagues are considering what restrictions would look like if conditions warranted moving into Stage 4.
“Currently, that work is still underway, and our latest predictions indicate we could approach Stage 4 if we have no weather events on the horizon. We were in the Stage 4 trigger level in 2014; however, we did not call Stage 4 due to forecasted rain events that actualized,” Krause said.
The situation in South Texas is not much better.
State representatives from Laredo and surrounding cities are asking for support from the state to put in an emergency pipeline that would add more water to the city’s supply, the Texas Tribune reported.
Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz said, “We need help. We cannot do it alone locally. It would throw us into a horrendous financial bind as a community for us to try to attempt to bring in water. If somehow the state says no, we have no choice. We’d have to suspend basically everything that we have.”
The population in Texas is growing rapidly, and water experts in the state who spoke to The Hill said that could also impact water resources.
Near Austin, former cattle ranches are being developed into housing, and they are tapping into the Lower Trinity Aquifer, according to hydrologist Douglas Wierman. He said this has brought the water supply in the region to some of its lowest levels.
He told The Hill that new developments have drained the aquifer to the “tipping point where our demand for water resources has outpaced the ability of our aquifers and rivers to replenish themselves.”
Perry Fowler from the Texas Water Infrastructure Network stated that smaller cities and communities should do what they can locally to shore up their water supplies.
The drought across Texas has led to dipping reservoir levels and concerns about future water supply security, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
