TCEQ approves plan withholding more Highland Lakes water

CONNIE SWINNEY • STAFF WRITER

AUSTIN —  The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality unanimously approved a revised Water Management Plan on Nov. 4 that keeps more water in the Highland Lakes and uses updated drought data to manage releases downstream.

The plan goes into effect Jan. 1, 2016, and will replace the 2010 plan governing how the Highland Lakes are managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority.

“Basically, it protects the drinking water customers because it raises the trigger levels,” said Jo Karr Tedder, president of the Central Texas Water Coalition. “It also takes into account drought conditions that will help keep the amount of water in the lakes more reasonable.”

The approval follows several years of a contentious battle between domestic water users in the Highland Lakes, agricultural interests on the Texas coast, environmentalists and the aquatic and wildlife industries along the Colorado River.

In particular, interests upstream advocated for increasing required storage levels for Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis, the two main reservoirs, as the agricultural industry fought for more releases to save their livelihood.

“This is a big win for the Highland Lakes, for all the upper basin,” said Burnet County Pct. 4 Commissioner Joe Don Dockery. “It’s taking the politics out of the scenario and basing it on climate and scientific data that is reliable.”

The new plan allows for three new trigger levels for water release:

• extraordinary drought — 1.3 million acre-feet of combined storage for the reservoirs;

• less severe drought — 1.1 million acre-feet of combined storage;

• normal conditions — 1 million acre-feet of combined storage.

LCRA had been using an 850,000 acre-feet trigger level issued in an emergency order since 2012, and water was withheld from so-called “interruptible” water customers such as the agriculture industry for three years in a row.

“The open supply was the Achilles heel of the last plan,” Karr Tedder said. “Obviously, it was broken or the lakes would not have been devastated in 2011 because the LCRA was just following the (2010) plan.”

Despite low inflows and dwindling lake levels, in 2011, LCRA released water downstream to rice farmers, which opponents say contributed to domestic water use issues and harm to the recreation industry as well as fueled concerns about potential water shortages.

In 2012, LCRA began the process of changing the Water Management Plan.

A primary goal of the revisions involved increasing the trigger levels for water releases and utilizing drought and inflow data up through 2013 in the new plan.

“Rice farmers can no longer take as much water as they want,” Karr Tedder said. “We understand it’s been this way because, historically, that’s been the way it’s been, but we don’t have the water anymore to subsidize the rice farmer.”

Another revision involves LCRA utilizing two review points for considering water releases: March 1 and July 1, which replace the Jan. 1 annual review.

Among the compromises in the plan, environmentalists advocated for continued so-called “pulse flows” to preserve wildlife and aquatic life in bays and estuaries downstream.

Also, the agricultural industry advocated for the reduction of the “extraordinary drought” trigger level from 1.4 million acre-feet to 1.3 million acre-feet of water.

“It’s a balancing act, and everybody should be willing to compromise, but we don’t think we should compromise on drinking water,” Karr Tedder said. “We have to have food, but there are other crops that are not so water intensive.”

Advocates for the Highland Lakes say the battle will continue to address concerns about access and cost.

“We’re very pleased with (the new plan), but until you address the water pricing issues, there’s still going to be inequities,” Karr Tedder said.

Currently, agriculture irrigators, including rice farmers, pay $6.50 per acre-foot of water, while domestic users and municipalities pay $175 per acre-foot of water.

“We’re going to be focused now on the water pricing,” she said. “Until your prices are more equitable, it just doesn’t make sense, even for LCRA, from a business perspective.”

connie@thepicayune.com