{"id":13157,"date":"2012-06-29T09:43:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T14:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=13157"},"modified":"2013-11-15T15:46:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T21:46:44","slug":"life-by-the-drop-a-tale-of-drought-told-in-the-flow-of-the-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/06\/29\/life-by-the-drop-a-tale-of-drought-told-in-the-flow-of-the-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Life By the Drop: A Tale of Drought Told in the Flow of the Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Terrence Henry<\/p>

The Colorado River winds it's way near the town of Robert Lee. The town's reservoir dried up last year and water is now pumped in by pipeline.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Running from headwaters near New Mexico, the Colorado cuts southeast through Texas, feeding cities, farms, power plants and ecosystems before flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the longest river to start and end all within the state of Texas.<\/p>\n

In good years, its water is enough to sustain\u00a0communities\u00a0at every point as it cuts its course through the state. 2011 was not a good year.<\/p>\n

To hear the voices of\u00a0people\u00a0who depend on the Colorado for their lives and livelihoods is not just to hear about the drought of 2011. It teaches us about the looming water crisis that faces Texas. If trends continue, our state will keep growing but our water supplies will\u00a0stay the same, or even diminish.<\/p>\n

Taken individually, each stop along the river puts a human face to last year’s drought.\u00a0Taken as a whole, the stories paint a picture of competing interests and a state struggling to manage a limited but vital resource.<\/p>\n

Running Dry in Robert Lee<\/h4>\n

In West Texas there sits a reservoir that isn\u2019t. The E.V. Spence reservoir was built in 1969 to protect communities from just the type of catastrophic drought that hit the state a decade earlier. It worked, until last year. What had been a stable water supply turned into a muddy pit carved out of the high plains, and the town of Robert Lee had to find other ways to stay alive.<\/p>\n

The story of Robert Lee is one that played out in other small towns across Texas last year, like\u00a0Groesbeck\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Spicewood Beach<\/a>. Rivers and reservoirs dried up.Wells failed<\/a>. And city governments with little cash rushed to finance lifelines.<\/p>\n

For John Jacobs, a fourth-generation West Texan and lifelong resident of Robert Lee, the moment his town almost ran dry was actually a long time coming. But it still felt sudden. The town had brushes with running dry before. \u201cBut every time we\u2019d go get in a bind, it would rain,\u201d Jacobs remembers. \u201cWe\u2019d catch water, and then we\u2019d spend all that money for something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came the great drought.<\/p>\n