{"id":6781,"date":"2012-02-29T21:15:04","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T03:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=6781"},"modified":"2012-03-01T22:38:01","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T04:38:01","slug":"its-going-to-be-close-but-outlook-is-grim-for-rice-farmers-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/02\/29\/its-going-to-be-close-but-outlook-is-grim-for-rice-farmers-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Going to Be Close, But Outlook is Grim for Rice Farmers This Year in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Terrence Henry\/StateImpact Texas<\/p>

Haskell Simon represents rice farmers in Bay City, Texas<\/p><\/div>\n

We won’t know for sure until midnight on Thursday, but there may not be enough water for rice farmers in southeast Texas this year.<\/p>\n

Under an\u00a0emergency water plan<\/a>\u00a0adopted by the\u00a0Lower Colorado River Authority<\/a>\u00a0(LCRA) in late September in\u00a0response to the drought<\/a>, the combined levels of the two major Highland Lakes, Buchanan and Travis, need to be at 850,000 acre-feet before water is sent to rice farmers downstream. (An acre-foot <\/a>of water is a volume measurement, equal to about 325,800 gallons of water). As of right now, those lakes are at about 846,300 acre-feet, and you can even watch a ticker of the levels at the LCRA’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a while it looked like it was going to be really close. While just weeks ago the lakes held only 767,000 acre-feet, after heavy rains they rose rapidly. But those inflows slowly dropped, and for the last week have averaged only\u00a0about 1,000 acre-feet of water a day. As of Tuesday morning, the lakes were at 842,000 acre-feet, leaving many rice farmers to give up hope, knowing it would take at least a week to get to the levels they needed.<\/p>\n

And then, out of nowhere, the levels suddenly went up overnight Tuesday, reaching 846,000 acre-feet by Wednesday morning. If they could go up 4,000 acre-feet in a day, and there was still almost two days left before the deadline, perhaps there’s a chance after all, many thought.<\/p>\n

But where did that water suddenly come from? It certainly didn’t rain. The Highland Lakes region has seen no more than a tenth of an inch of rain in the last week.<\/p>\n

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