A Tale of Two Water Districts
If this were a fairy tale the North Texas Municipal Water District would be the little pig who built his house of straw. But this is no fairy tale and we find ourselves at the mercy of fall and winter rains if we are to avoid severe water shortages. Dry land farmers expect this sort of thing. Droughts, floods, late freezes, hail storms and all sorts of local weather risks have been their bane for as long as there has been agriculture. But we city dwellers hire water boards, appoint planning commissions, build reservoirs and pay taxes to prepare for such contingencies. Farmers can recover from failed crops and even if there are several in succession we have all manner of emergency relief programs in place to help keep them afloat. But we just don’t expect our city water supply to fail. That’s what pipelines are for. It we are short of water in one place we import it from another.
Lake Lavon is our principal water source. There are no natural lakes in Texas so, as are most other lakes in the region, Lavon is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project. It has three primary purposes; flood control, reservoir, and recreation. Right now it looks like a scene from one of those doomsday movies with wide expanses of dry cracked lake bed where there ought to be water. If it drops another two feet we will go from mild water restrictions to serious rationing. It shouldn’t be that way.
Last weekend I drove across Lake Ray Hubbard from Rockwall into Garland. Ray Hubbard begins only a few hundred yards downstream from the dam at Lavon. That’s where Dallas gets most of its water. It’s down about four feet, noticeable if you look but you have to look. It’s what you would expect in drought conditions. There is talk of water conservation in Dallas but not the alarm the rest of us are feeling. The difference is that Dallas has adequate supplies in reserve for any foreseeable conditions. We don’t.
The operative word is “foreseeable.” It’s true the drought is severe, probably the most serious in fifty years or more judging by Weather Service records. The Lavon watershed got as little as half its normal rainfall last year and we are down about a quarter so far this year, but it isn’t the stuff of the 1930s Oklahoma Dust Bowl. The big issue is we have not provided for the population growth we have experienced since Lavon was last enlarged in 1975. Anybody who has lived here since then can attest the growth has been phenomenal, steady, and predictable. There has been a constant frenzy of construction. We have built roads, schools, churches, shopping centers, power lines and commuter rail. What we have not done is obtain adequate water supplies to support it all.
Droughts happen. Responsible government officials all the way from the municipal level to the national level plan for them. We are seeing a great deal in the news about the drought and the need for conservation measures. Maybe for now that’s all we can do, but we also need reliable water supplies. I’d like to know how we are going to get them. How did we get to this sorry pass? What are we doing to address it for the future? Why hasn’t it been done already? Shouldn’t somebody be held responsible? Who runs NTMWD? When can we expect new supplies? Where are they coming from? Dallas doesn’t have this problem. Why is the wolf only at our door?
Lake Lavon is our principal water source. There are no natural lakes in Texas so, as are most other lakes in the region, Lavon is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project. It has three primary purposes; flood control, reservoir, and recreation. Right now it looks like a scene from one of those doomsday movies with wide expanses of dry cracked lake bed where there ought to be water. If it drops another two feet we will go from mild water restrictions to serious rationing. It shouldn’t be that way.
Last weekend I drove across Lake Ray Hubbard from Rockwall into Garland. Ray Hubbard begins only a few hundred yards downstream from the dam at Lavon. That’s where Dallas gets most of its water. It’s down about four feet, noticeable if you look but you have to look. It’s what you would expect in drought conditions. There is talk of water conservation in Dallas but not the alarm the rest of us are feeling. The difference is that Dallas has adequate supplies in reserve for any foreseeable conditions. We don’t.
The operative word is “foreseeable.” It’s true the drought is severe, probably the most serious in fifty years or more judging by Weather Service records. The Lavon watershed got as little as half its normal rainfall last year and we are down about a quarter so far this year, but it isn’t the stuff of the 1930s Oklahoma Dust Bowl. The big issue is we have not provided for the population growth we have experienced since Lavon was last enlarged in 1975. Anybody who has lived here since then can attest the growth has been phenomenal, steady, and predictable. There has been a constant frenzy of construction. We have built roads, schools, churches, shopping centers, power lines and commuter rail. What we have not done is obtain adequate water supplies to support it all.
Droughts happen. Responsible government officials all the way from the municipal level to the national level plan for them. We are seeing a great deal in the news about the drought and the need for conservation measures. Maybe for now that’s all we can do, but we also need reliable water supplies. I’d like to know how we are going to get them. How did we get to this sorry pass? What are we doing to address it for the future? Why hasn’t it been done already? Shouldn’t somebody be held responsible? Who runs NTMWD? When can we expect new supplies? Where are they coming from? Dallas doesn’t have this problem. Why is the wolf only at our door?
posted by Onfoot at 8:21 AM
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