Editor's Note: According to a November 16 article in the Austin American-Statesman, Cedar Park and Leander have been removed from the high-priority list. Cedar Park, in an online statement, said that its placement on the list resulted from a "miscommunication." They have been removed from the map.
Eleven communities across Texas are on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s “high priority” water list, which covers cities and towns that either could run out of water within six months if nothing changes (like rainfall or a new pipeline connection) or do not know how much water they have remaining.
Use the map below to see where each community is located. Each location is color coded by how many days away the projected out-of-water date is from today's publication date if the situation does not change. Click on an icon to view more detailed information, or use the table below.
* The city of Groesbeck's population as of the 2010 Census is 4,296, but due to the way population is counted this does not take in account the 1,000 bed prison located in the city. Groesbeck serves 6,000 individuals' water needs daily, including prisoners and school children.
^ The population listed for the city of Robert Lee includes the 550 people at the Coke County Water Supply Corporation.
County
Water Supplier
Connections
Population
Source
TCEQ Notified
Out of Water
Burnet
Windermere Oaks Water Supply Corporation
232
696
Lake Travis
9/19/2011
Unknown
Coke
Robert Lee
652
^1,524
Lake EV Spence and Mountain Creek Reservoir
8/29/2011
3/1/2012
Coke
Coke County Water Supply Corporation
233
550
SWP from City of Robert Lee
8/29/2011
3/1/2012
Comal
Amber Creek Mobile Home Park
24
72
3 Trinity wells
8/29/2011
3/31/2012
Kaufman
Kemp
759
2,277
Cedar Creek Reservoir
8/29/2011
3/31/2012
Limestone
Groesbeck
2,079
*4,296
Navasota River
8/29/2011
12/6/2011
Limestone
SLC Water Supply Corporation
525
1,575
Lake Limestone
8/29/2011
4/6/2012
Real
Oakmont Saddle Mountain
103
309
2 Edwards-Trinity wells
8/29/2011
2/28/2012
Sabine
Pendleton Harbor
195
576
Toledo Bend Reservoir
8/29/2011
12/6/2011
Tarrant
Cooley Point
52
156
2 Paluxy and Twin Mountain-Travis Peak wells
8/29/2011
3/31/2012
Walker
Frisby's Landing
25
75
1 Jackson Group well
8/29/2011
2/12/2012
Days until projected out-of-water date from 11/30/2011
Unknown
143 to 100 days
100 to 50 days
Less than 50 days
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Haven't read it,but San Antonio needs water...tell "THE GUV" prayers must have been answered.His hair ever need sprucing up?It looks too rigid. He,om the other hand,is not....
Build hurricane proof nuclear plants along Texas' Gulf Coast; desalinate with after midnight surplus power. Pebblebed technology, Helium cooled, cannot melt down; fuel pellets are recycled, not stored. Also, unlike inland power plants, these plants could use salt water instead of drinking water for condensing. Don't say it can't be done - Navy ships powered by nuclear engines have been using salt water condensing for 50 years. Expense of nuclear plants is in the licensing and building, not the fuel. U.S. has the 2nd largest supply of yellow cake Uranium in the world. You are correct that no private investors will touch this. Public funds or guarantees are essential. Divert a small fraction of the NASA budget, and we will be growing carrots in San Angelo!
November 17, 2011 @ 8:28 a.m.
craig king
Mickey - Texas has three desalination projects (UT and Navy) in South Texas. Texas is looking at solutions.
Mary Lynn - The Guv beside your low approval of him has done quit well for Texas. Read up on his State initiatives instead of what most people want to write about (criticism) and you would be surprised that he is great influence on the States future and past accomplishments.
November 17, 2011 @ 11:05 a.m.
joe cool
You may want to remember that we are talking about Texas here and everything is long distances. None of these locations are closer than 200 miles from the ocean and several are more like 500 to 600 miles. A desalinization project for these areas may not be practical because of the billions of dollars it would cost to get the water where it is actually needed. Conservation and well planned, limited growth are more likely to be the real answer to water issues in Texas.
November 19, 2011 @ 2:50 a.m.
john cordes
LCRA manages the water of the Highland Lakes. City of Austin metropolitan use equals about one third of the water use that is diverted to rice farmers in Wharton and Matagorda counties. There is no legislative review of their actions, board members are appointed by Rick Perry, (ergo the entire Board of Directors of the LCRA are now Perry appointees) several of whom are either the very same rice farmers or closely associated with the rice farming industry/banks or irrigators. Do you think they recuse themselves when decisions regarding water releases are made and how to prioritize this interuptible demand? (Don't guess, the answer is no.) Which begs the question, how much water rationing is required from the residents of Austin before this arrangement is reconsidered? If 2/3 rds annual of the total acre feet is being flushed downstream to drown weeds for rice farmers, how much impact is it making on the situation when you don't have a glass of water in the restaurant and the tree canopy of Austin dies off? Can we reduce the rice farming irrigation requirement to say, just one crop next year? Hasn't happened yet!
November 26, 2011 @ 11:29 p.m.
Michael Arndt
Desalination plants aren't dangerous, but the cost of water production by desalination is significantly higher than the cost for conventional methods. Still, Israel has had to install some desalination plants out of necessity. Another problem is that water is relatively expensive to pipe over long distances, more than expensive than oil. I don't live in Texas, but if my memory serves, I seem to recall that a Texas Commission called for about $65 billion in infrastructure spending so that the water supply could last through extended droughts like this.
pineline from flood areas is the key. We know every year it floods certain areas all we need to do is build lake to hold flood water and pipe it to lakes , streams and rivers to fill lakes were needed. It is better than seeing those same areas flood every year and other lakes go with out it is a win win for everyone. There is going to be a oil pipeline coming to Texas I say run a water pipeline with it.
December 1, 2011 @ 9:38 a.m.
Clint Elston
Greywater recycling reduces the need for water by 99%.
December 1, 2011 @ 9:43 a.m.
Clint Elston
Please check out blackwater and greywater onsite separation and treatment, recycling technologies capable of reducing the need for water by 95 - 99% and wastewater pollution by 100%.
Piped water and sewers are unsustainable. Spaceship Earth utilizes resources instead of considering them as wastes.
December 1, 2011 @ 11:34 a.m.
joe marcinkowski
One of the big problems we have is that the fresh water coming from upstate is needed to maintain the enviroment in the Gulf. Because of the drought oyster seedlings are having a difficult time. Beds around Corpus are gone and we will be losing more as the volume of fresh water fails. This impacts the food supply for the migrating birds, see whooping crane article in this news report. The whole gulf enviroment will be negatively impacted.
In addition, because of the continued drought, the upstate cities will start recylcing water, this will substantially reduce the flow of fresh water to the Gulf
Desalination: We can ask Industry and bottling companies to build the desalination plants for their use. Would save awater for the humans.
December 1, 2011 @ 12:10 p.m.
David Starkey
As soon as ONE place in Texas goes dry, it will be the 2nd most dried up thing in Texas. Perry's nomination chances will dry up harder & faster.
June 26, 2012 @ 1:42 p.m.
John Walton
This was either all planned or just the fools in Austin playing instead of thinking. We just mandated that TXU spend millions of dollars filling in the largest man-made lakes (reservoirs) in the world, just to keep the environmental fools quiet. Had we worked with the Corp. of Engineers, these would have been full by now. 300' deep full. 5 miles by 20 miles full. Buffer zoned security full. Instead what we have is land that is unusable for 50 years, people getting thrown off of their family farms, and water shortages for as far as the eye can see.
Comments (19)
Mickey Meader via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why doesn't Texas build some Desalination Plants?
Mary Lynn VanZandt Neill via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Haven't read it,but San Antonio needs water...tell "THE GUV" prayers must have been answered.His hair ever need sprucing up?It looks too rigid. He,om the other hand,is not....
Mary Lynn VanZandt Neill via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh,"on the other hand"
Michael Cooksey via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You can ignore science all you want, cut it out of books, alter it to fit your political or religious ideology, but nature will not be denied.
John Burton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ Mickey - I believe desalination is similar to nuclear power. People talk about it, but investors and insurance companies won't touch them.
Tom Fairey
Build hurricane proof nuclear plants along Texas' Gulf Coast; desalinate with after midnight surplus power. Pebblebed technology, Helium cooled, cannot melt down; fuel pellets are recycled, not stored. Also, unlike inland power plants, these plants could use salt water instead of drinking water for condensing. Don't say it can't be done - Navy ships powered by nuclear engines have been using salt water condensing for 50 years. Expense of nuclear plants is in the licensing and building, not the fuel. U.S. has the 2nd largest supply of yellow cake Uranium in the world. You are correct that no private investors will touch this. Public funds or guarantees are essential. Divert a small fraction of the NASA budget, and we will be growing carrots in San Angelo!
craig king
Mickey - Texas has three desalination projects (UT and Navy) in South Texas. Texas is looking at solutions.
Mary Lynn - The Guv beside your low approval of him has done quit well for Texas. Read up on his State initiatives instead of what most people want to write about (criticism) and you would be surprised that he is great influence on the States future and past accomplishments.
joe cool
You may want to remember that we are talking about Texas here and everything is long distances. None of these locations are closer than 200 miles from the ocean and several are more like 500 to 600 miles. A desalinization project for these areas may not be practical because of the billions of dollars it would cost to get the water where it is actually needed. Conservation and well planned, limited growth are more likely to be the real answer to water issues in Texas.
john cordes
LCRA manages the water of the Highland Lakes. City of Austin metropolitan use equals about one third of the water use that is diverted to rice farmers in Wharton and Matagorda counties. There is no legislative review of their actions, board members are appointed by Rick Perry, (ergo the entire Board of Directors of the LCRA are now Perry appointees) several of whom are either the very same rice farmers or closely associated with the rice farming industry/banks or irrigators. Do you think they recuse themselves when decisions regarding water releases are made and how to prioritize this interuptible demand? (Don't guess, the answer is no.) Which begs the question, how much water rationing is required from the residents of Austin before this arrangement is reconsidered? If 2/3 rds annual of the total acre feet is being flushed downstream to drown weeds for rice farmers, how much impact is it making on the situation when you don't have a glass of water in the restaurant and the tree canopy of Austin dies off? Can we reduce the rice farming irrigation requirement to say, just one crop next year? Hasn't happened yet!
Michael Arndt
Desalination plants aren't dangerous, but the cost of water production by desalination is significantly higher than the cost for conventional methods. Still, Israel has had to install some desalination plants out of necessity. Another problem is that water is relatively expensive to pipe over long distances, more than expensive than oil. I don't live in Texas, but if my memory serves, I seem to recall that a Texas Commission called for about $65 billion in infrastructure spending so that the water supply could last through extended droughts like this.
Alex Tango Fuego via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Well, imagine that....
Jim Gusanoz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
When New Orleans was hit by hurricane you people said it was God punishing them for their sinful ways. What is God punishing you people for ???
Jay Iyfr via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Didn't Gov Goodhair want y'all to secede? I hear Mexico has water.
gypsy314 ne
pineline from flood areas is the key. We know every year it floods certain areas all we need to do is build lake to hold flood water and pipe it to lakes , streams and rivers to fill lakes were needed. It is better than seeing those same areas flood every year and other lakes go with out it is a win win for everyone. There is going to be a oil pipeline coming to Texas I say run a water pipeline with it.
Clint Elston
Greywater recycling reduces the need for water by 99%.
Clint Elston
Please check out blackwater and greywater onsite separation and treatment, recycling technologies capable of reducing the need for water by 95 - 99% and wastewater pollution by 100%.
Piped water and sewers are unsustainable. Spaceship Earth utilizes resources instead of considering them as wastes.
joe marcinkowski
One of the big problems we have is that the fresh water coming from upstate is needed to maintain the enviroment in the Gulf.
Because of the drought oyster seedlings are having a difficult time. Beds around Corpus are gone and we will be losing more as the volume of fresh water fails. This impacts the food supply for the migrating birds, see whooping crane article in this news report. The whole gulf enviroment will be negatively impacted.
In addition, because of the continued drought, the upstate cities will start recylcing water, this will substantially reduce the flow of fresh water to the Gulf
Desalination:
We can ask Industry and bottling companies to build the desalination plants for their use.
Would save awater for the humans.
David Starkey
As soon as ONE place in Texas goes dry, it will be the 2nd most dried up thing in Texas.
Perry's nomination chances will dry up harder & faster.
John Walton
This was either all planned or just the fools in Austin playing instead of thinking. We just mandated that TXU spend millions of dollars filling in the largest man-made lakes (reservoirs) in the world, just to keep the environmental fools quiet. Had we worked with the Corp. of Engineers, these would have been full by now. 300' deep full. 5 miles by 20 miles full. Buffer zoned security full. Instead what we have is land that is unusable for 50 years, people getting thrown off of their family farms, and water shortages for as far as the eye can see.
Yeah, this was planned.