Reservoirs Make Comeback in Parched Texas
Tucked away in Northeast Texas, Lake Gilmer was the last major reservoir built in the state, more than a decade ago. Local officials said they intended to share construction costs and water with a new power plant, but the power company backed out, leaving the city of Gilmer with the bill.
Rather than serve city or industrial customers as a water source, the lake is mostly used for bass fishing.
Despite this cautionary tale, Texas’ interest in reservoirs is reviving as the drought persists and growing cities scramble for new water supplies. The state’s water planners envision 26 new ...
Comments (11)
Dormand Long
It is good that planning is being done to address the massive additional demand that will result over generations from the indicated migration to Texas from other states and countries, as well as those new individuals own efforts to perpetuate the species.
It is probably not feasible to supply enough water to this massive surge of new Texas residents if the current residents and the new immigrants consume water at the rate it has historically been used at the artificially low rates that public policy had set its pricing.
It is important to recognize that water is the critical path of society for the arid Southwestern part of the United States. We will see incredibly intense battles over control of water as the demand for this precious, but too often wasted critical resource far exceeds its supply at reasonable prices.
As a clarification, there is an unlimited supply of fresh water, but as the quantities escalate, the incremental cost for supplying that water increase exponentially.
The City of Carlsbad, California just executed a contract obligating it to pay $3 billion over the next 30 years to a nearby desalination facility to assure that its residents will have access to the water essential for its growth,
The City of Santa Ana has installed an elaborate sewage water recycling plant which is capable of cleansing sewage plant water to the very highest level of purity. The human dynamics element addresses the queasiness factor of public acceptance of water from this source by the City's decision to not introduce this recycled water directly into its fresh water distribution system.
Santa Ana will instead inject this water into area aquifers, to allow for theoretical further cleansing by nature before it is pumped out and run through water plants before distribution though the city water system.
Sewage water recycling has been used for decades in NASA missions, at an enormous cost per liter. That is a better alternative than attempting to attach a tanker truck amount of water to the space capsules.
Rather than going overboard on just the supply side of this issue, much can be done to address the public policy problem of having the public expect that water should be as cheap as the air that we breathe (actually it has astronomical costs to society if one includes the health costs from fine particle soot that the EPA and the rest of the federal government has not had the backbone to protect sensitive young lungs from, especially downwind from the smokestacks of Midlothian, where toxic waste has been burned to provide low cost fuel for cement plants.)
Much can be done to reduce wasteful use of water via the following behavior modificaiton/conservation protocols:
* emulating the successful use of native Buffalo grass turf by Richland College, which requires no mowing and no irrigation, yet is beautiful and durable in high foot traffic areas.
* lining ancient water mains with pliable plastic liners which are then injected with air to fit against the inner surfaces of the water mains and seal the many leaks that have appeared over the decades.
* implementing incremental tiered pricing. This provides for low pricing of the gallons of water that a family would use if all water conservation protocols were implemented as the base tier. Additional tiers of significantly higher price per gallon of water cause wastrels to pay dearly for ignoring readily available water conservation protocols, such as seeding native Buffalo grass in lawns instead of incredibly thirsty St. Augustine or Bermuda grass lawns.
* encouraging of use of rain barrels and other rain water utilization.
* aggressive signaling of increasing pricing of water in each and every year in the near future from the water utility.
* funding the application of native Buffalo grass and rain barrel applications through the water utility, with full repayment at no interest over the subsequent twelve month period. Savings from reduced use of water and not having to have lawns mowed should cover most of these payments.
* aggressive signaling of water wastrels, even if they use private water wells, such as Tom Hicks and Harlan Crow, who each use an enormous quantity of water in their landscaping.
* implementing native Buffalo grass in roadways and city park settings, which eliminate mowing requirements
* providing awareness of gallons used and cost of wasteful practices in household use to encourage voluntary adaption of sensible water conservation practices.
* enforcing of prohibitions of irrigation during rainfall periods, especially by the most egregious scofflaw, the municipalities themselves.
Tommy Walker
Conservation measures should be enacted *first* before reservoirs are built. Let's not quickly tread upon people who must sacrifice their land or farms to supply water to people who are wasteful. For example, replacing water hungry lawns in arid areas with Buffalo grass should be an up front requirement.
Terri Russo Daugherty via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Stop wasting our precious water on FRACKING!!!
Leo Tynan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And what about the reservoirs currently drying up? Why am I skeptical they'll come up with the best solution.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Reservoirs dried up because the water was used and there was little to no rain fall. Reservoirs collect water from large rain events. The states reservoirs were built in response to the drought of the 1950's Since that time agriculture grew and so did the urban populations. AS we went away from the 1950's drought, water as an issue took a back seat.
The state has had water plans drawn up over the years but no money put towards it. IF you want more information of water resources then go to the Texas Water Development Board website.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Fracking uses very little water as a whole. In the Marcellus Shale it is 0.8% of the total water used. Oil and gas account for less than 1 percent of the Texas state’s total water use.
Jim Vance
"Mini-reservoirs" on the land of a farmer or rancher are either impoundments to provide water for livestock (i.e., "stock ponds") or a temporary flood control measure to check excessive runoff and protect land or crop resources from scouring and erosion while serving to recharge groundwater as the water levels recede through controlled runoff and absorption or evaporation. Neither type is designed or intended for use as municipal or industrial water sources which require reasonably large quantities of reliable and constantly-available water to be supplied. If Lake Gilmer water is effectively not being used for anything other than to support bass fishing, an intake structure, pumps and a pipeline to supply water from it to somewhere it's actually needed is a much less expensive and disruptive method than construction of more reservoirs whose impounded footprint permanently disrupts local riparian environments and the lives of many landowners now ensconced within each footprint.
D W
the problem is that with climate change, Texas is to get drier, as we will be more often in a drought. unless we want to reduce population, reduce demand for electricity, or reduce employment for jobs. doubt we can reduce enough demand by conservation, but we should still try to do it, since we wont be building any of these reservoirs in the short term. but long term we will need the water.
Carolyn Mata via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What about conservation and using recycled water.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Those methods Carolyn will not provide for the needs that the state is experiencing.
neeru narwal
I want to divert your kind attention towards the rejected water drained into the sink during the RO filtration
it can be noticed very easily that if RO filters 5liter of drinking water then on the opposite side it also rejects almost 5 liters of water too and people are not sensitive to store this rejected water for other use for e.g we can use it for watering plants or sweeping etc. or it can be used in the way so that it may be recycled naturally
this is my humble request to you pls make some arrangements via. govt. advertisements to make our public aware the fact that we can use rejected water very easily or our govt. can take actions to make RO companies to put some message on the main cover of filter so that at least people will get aware about this fact.