{"id":34471,"date":"2014-02-21T14:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T20:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=34471"},"modified":"2014-02-21T15:27:22","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T21:27:22","slug":"in-central-texas-water-war-shows-no-signs-of-drying-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/21\/in-central-texas-water-war-shows-no-signs-of-drying-up\/","title":{"rendered":"In Central Texas, Water War Shows No Signs of Drying Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Jeff Heimsath\/StateImpact Texas<\/p>

The drought has affected Texans across the state. Haskell Simon, a rice farmer in Bay City, could go without water a third year in a row.<\/p><\/div>\n

Update:<\/strong>\u00a0 State administrative law judges\u00a0recommended today<\/a> a higher trigger point for cutting off water from the Highland Lakes for rice farmers this year, saying “emergency conditions exist which present an imminent threat to\u00a0the public health and safety.” If adopted, these recommendations would mean there is almost no chance of most rice farmers downstream on the Lower Colorado of getting water for irrigation. This would be the third year in a row of water cutoffs for the rice farmers. Under the proposed cutoff, unless the lakes are nearly 70 percent full, water will not be sent downstream for most farmers. The lakes are currently 38 percent full.<\/p>\n

Original Story, Feb. 13:<\/strong> There’s less and less water in the Highland Lakes of Central Texas these days, and the fight over who gets what’s left has laid bare the ugly politics of drought<\/a>. With each passing day, it seems the\u00a0comity and compassion between groups competing for the water drops in step with the falling lake levels. Now those interests will need to wait longer\u00a0before regulators make a decision on giving water to farmers this year.<\/p>\n

At a meeting Wednesday of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality<\/a> (TCEQ), upstream and downstream interests\u00a0sparred for hours over a proposal\u00a0to approve a third year of water curtailments<\/a> for rice farmers along the Lower Colorado River. There was a clear cultural and geographic line between them: Those upstream, including Austin, want a higher trigger point this year than the one proposed to protect the drinking water of a million people<\/a>. Below Austin, where rice farmers<\/a> have relied on water stored in the lakes to irrigate their fields, an industry is warning that if the cutoffs continue, their livelihood will be lost.<\/p>\n

This is the third year that the Lower Colorado River Authority<\/a> (LCRA) has put together an emergency drought plan that cuts off water from the lakes for most rice farmers. And this year they’ve set the trigger point even higher than the past two years. If the Highland Lakes don’t have a combined 1.1 million acre-feet of water in them by midnight March 1, most rice farmers won’t get water this year. Currently, the lakes are 38 percent full, with 762,000 acre-feet of water. Absent a major storm, it’s unlikely there will be enough water in them to avoid a cutoff.<\/p>\n