OUR TURN: LCRA needs to review its policy after well went dry
The recent crisis in Spicewood Beach that began with a well dropping to critically low levels clearly indicates the Lower Colorado River Authority needs to take a hard look at its policies.
The crisis eventually was averted because LCRA began trucking in extra water and also installed a new pump on the well. Still, most realize there never should have been a disruption in the first place if the LCRA had been doing a better job of monitoring the water level in the well.
The Spicewood Beach Regional Water System serves Spicewood Elementary School and 1,100 rural residents spread across Spicewood Beach, Lakeside Beach, Lake Oaks and Eagle Bluff.
The well is their only source of water. They not only depended on LCRA to provide an adequate supply without interruption, but they also paid for that service. Sadly, the authority failed them on both counts.
It’s no secret Texas is in the grip of one of the worst droughts the state has ever seen. The fact LCRA also sold water from the dwindling well during the drought is deeply troubling. Again, this only shows that LCRA must review and revise its policies concerning management of the water systems the agency oversees.
True, the authority is selling off most of its water and wastewater systems this year. That’s probably a good thing, given what happened in Spicewood Beach.
But the sales are not final yet, and there’s nothing stopping LCRA from investing in well systems in the future.
State Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, expressed his dismay with the authority when he learned water had been sold from the ailing well. That view was echoed by many of the residents forced to rush out and buy water so they could nourish their babies, cook for their families and keep their homes sanitized.
This is Spicewood, a community in the planet’s most prosperous and industrialized nation, not some Third World village. Adequate supplies of water must never be in question.
LCRA officials should have realized early on that drawing water out of the Spicewood Beach system to make money by selling it to someone else was not in the best interests of residents.
The authority maintains it ran monthly and then daily checks on the well level. Officials also say some of the water went to nearby construction projects and to locals whose personal wells went dry.
However, that still doesn’t excuse letting outside haulers remove more than 1 million gallons. This is exactly the kind of monitoring process that needs to be corrected, and LCRA has an obligation to do so.
While LCRA says Spicewood Beach residents used 32.4 million gallons of water in 2011, or about 5,500 gallons per household each month, it doesn’t take a hydrologist to figure out the missing 1 million gallons could have gone a long way in keeping the well from failing.
Water is the new oil, and it must be managed just as carefully. Because of the drought, it is a limited resource.
LCRA should revise its monitoring process, including instituting quicker moratoriums on sales of water when supplies are in question. Though the authority in this case stopped selling off Spicewood Beach water, the action came too late. The well started to fail three weeks later.
The authority is supposed to have the expertise in water management. It is LCRA’s job to know where the water is, where it isn’t and where it’s going. In this case, people who relied on LCRA and paid for their water found themselves thrown into a crisis.
This isn’t a case of a glass half full. It’s a glass that went empty, and it shouldn’t happen again.