Water Issues

Lubbock’s Water Not Our Own, Pulled From Multiple Sources

February 20, 2015 by Kaitlin Thogmartin

“We have been in a historic drought for the past few years, but even before that, we’ve been using water from the Ogallala Aquifer at a rate which is not sustainable.”

Julie Hodges, the Helen Devitt Jones endowed manager of education programs at the National Ranching Heritage Center, said the city of Lubbock has been searching for alternative water sources for a long time, even since the 1950s.

Interview with Julie Hodges, the Helen Devitt Jones endowed manager of education programs, at the National Ranching Heritage Center

Hodges said this search began with the establishment of Canadian River Municipal River Authority, or CRMWA, and the building of Lake Meredith reservoir on the Canadian River in the 1950s.

“The city of Lubbock is actually responsible for — municipalities in general, on top of the Ogallala — are actually responsible for only about 10 percent of water — 90 percent are used for agricultural purposes.”

Hodges said while we have been the breadbasket of the High Plains for a long while, the aquifer has become unstable because of that.

According to the City of Lubbock Water Quality Report, water from the Ogallala Aquifer is pumped from Roberts and Bailey counties well-fields. In 2013, this water accounted for 83 percent of the water supply in the city of Lubbock. The other 17 percent came from Lake Alan Henry.

According to the City of Lubbock Strategic Water Plan, a recent rain surge brought the decommissioned Lake Meredith back into supplementary use. Lake Meredith was decommissioned in 2011.

Dana Porter, Ph.D, an agricultural engineer for the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension in Lubbock, said while the aquifer is decreasing, growers in the area are adopting new efficient technologies to compensate.

“Well mostly what we got here in this area is groundwater from the Ogallala,” Porter said, “There are a few people who are starting to drill deeper into the Dockum or Santa Rosa Aquifer.

“The water quality in the Dockum tends to be poorer, or saltier, so it changes the management strategies.”

Porter said, in the end, it is the management strategies that need the most work in order to conserve water in the agriculture side of the Southern High Plains.

“We have the highest adoption rate of these efficient technologies,” Porter said.

Porter said the efficient technologies included crop rotation and center-pivot irrigation.

Interview with Dana Porter, Agricultural Engineer at Agrilife Extension

Hodges said that conservation is something we need to practice more in the city of Lubbock and is something many of us here are not the best at.

“There are ordinances,” Hodges said, “but they are not enforced here in the city of Lubbock, and it kind of comes down to what kind of crop you’re growing — even in the city. We have to look at what we’re growing in our yards and the way we use water in our houses.”

According to the United States Census Bureau, the population of Lubbock was 239,538 in 2013 — a 4.34% increase from 2010, when the population was 229,573.

Mycah Druesedow, a senior early education major at Texas Tech said she has noticed more drought resistant plants around campus in the past few years. In her everyday life, she also tries to conserve water.

“Just a lot of taking short showers,” Druesedow said, “turning water off, the stuff you learn when you’re little, like turning it off when you’re brushing your teeth, and when we cook, using it sparingly.”

Other Tech students are simply aware there is a problem.

“I’m sure that there’s a drought,” said Moriah Gold, a senior mechanical engineering major from Denver, Colorado, “but there seems to always be a drought everywhere, not just in Lubbock.”

Hodges said she does not feel optimistic about the use of Lake Alan Henry.

“Lake Alan Henry at its best can only provide 25 percent of our current usage for the city of Lubbock,” Hodges said, “In addition, pumping water uphill is an expensive venture. I don’t think it is a sustainable thing. Also, can we afford to pump water uphill for that long?”

According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Water Data for Texas, Lake Alan Henry has risen 3.09 feet in one year and is approximately 75 percent full.

According to the Lake Alan-Henry Supply Project Environmental Assessment, three pump stations are needed in addition to a water treatment plant and more than 60 miles of pipe to provide additional drinking water to the city of Lubbock. Different contaminants are treated there. Additional information about this can be seen here.

The assessment projected a total annual cost of $17.7 million annually for the entire operation.

West Texas Water Issues Go Deeper Than The Ogallala Aquifer

February 19, 2015 by Sarah Self-Walbrick

Many West Texans have compared the weather conditions during the past few years to the Dust Bowl. Dust devils swirl around the plains as haboobs blow in and cover everything in chalky brown dirt, all while it is 92 degrees Fahrenheit in November.

With increased rainfall in 2014, conditions are slowly improving. However, it will take many years for West Texas to recharge its water supply.

Ken Rainwater, Ph.D., is the former director of the Texas Tech University Water Resources Center and a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering. He said the issues currently being studied by the Water Resources Center have been years in the making.

“The drought in 2011 got everybody’s attention,” Rainwater said,” because we had less than six inches of rain, for example, here in Lubbock, and very hot — a lot of difficulties with that. And so, that got a lot of municipalities attention. Prior to that, we’ve had long-time knowledge that the Ogallala is depleting in parts of the Southern High Plains and what that impact is going to be on irrigated agriculture. People have been dealing with that for a good long time.”

Rainwater said having long-term water resources is one of the biggest concerns in the region. While Lubbock has a 100-year water plan, he said, many smaller towns in West Texas may have to find alternate water sources. Lubbock has already begun tapping other water resources besides the main source, Lake Meredith. This year, Lubbock began sourcing water from Lake Alan Henry.

Water issues affect most people on a personal level, but some West Texans have experienced economic harm due to the drought.

Darren Hudson, Ph.D., director of the Cotton Economics Research Institute and a professor in the department of agriculture and applies economics at Tech, said the higher cost of water means higher costs for farmers to produce the famous West Texas cotton crops.

Hudson said certain cotton species are better adapted to dry climates and certain irrigation techniques can alleviate the need for more water.

“Those can cope with low water years,” Hudson said. “There’s really no way to deal with, like, 2011, 2012, when we had no water. It helps, but it’s not perfect.”

According to Hudson, a cotton farmer can spend up to $450 per acre, with most farmers breaking even at the end of the cotton season. This includes irrigation, seeds, herbicides and pesticides needed to produce a fruitful crop. Hudson said most farmers can produce two to three bales of cotton per acre during a good year. The costs to produce a cotton crop, he said, will continue to go up as water becomes more scarce.

Rainwater said one of the biggest issues facing the water crisis in West Texas is the cleanliness of water. This is an issue facing large and small cities, he said, and that money is a deciding factor in how clean the drinking water is.

“We have a number of smaller towns and then some rural community water systems — probably at least 100 of them that are dependent on groundwater from the Ogallala — that are out of compliance in terms of arsenic and fluoride,” Rainwater said. “And so, a lot of those places have been getting notifications from the EPA and the TCQ that they need to do something about it, but they don’t necessarily have the funds to make those changes happen quickly.”

West Texas is known for its random weather patterns, with many areas receiving heavier and more rain than others. Rainwater said that can make it difficult to measure what is really happening with our water stability. Ultimately, natural precipitation is what the West Texas area needs right now, he said.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but when you have a house and a yard,” Rainwater said, “the yard likes rain better than it likes water out of the hose.”

Majority of Lubbock Debt from Lake Alan Henry

February 18, 2015 by Kaitlin Thogmartin

“One of the clichés that we use is ‘we keep things flowing, so you can keep going,'” the city of Lubbock director of water utilities, Aubrey Spears, said.

In November 2014, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts’ office released a “Debt at a Glance” for the state of Texas through August of 2013. This site recorded Lubbock’s debt at $983,415,000.

In his State of the City address on the Jan. 13 2015, Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson said the city currently has $1.15 billion in debt, with a majority of that coming from Lake Alan-Henry. A video of this can be found on the City of Lubbock website.

Spears said diversification is essential when it comes to water supplies. He said when one source of water is not doing well, it is vital to have other sources — both surface and groundwater.

“So, we have the surface water supplies, and we have a couple groundwater supplies, and we have a couple projects to upgrade our wastewater treatment plant to where we could even reuse water in the future,” Spears said.

“Diversification is so important so that you are not just tied to one supply. I think Lake Alan Henry is a very strategic project for a water supply for us. If we didn’t have that I think we would be having a difficult time making ends meet right now.”

In an email, Spears stated that the total construction cost of Lake Alan Henry was $157, 541, 222. The operation and maintenance costs are both more than $2 million a year.

Spears said the city of Lubbock is very conscientious of the debt it takes on, but water is a necessary resource.

Graph by City of Lubbock Strategic Water Plan 2013

Spears said the safe yield for Lake Alan Henry is 16,000 acres per foot, and Lubbock only pulls out 8,000 acres per foot.

“We’re not even tapping the full potential of the lake,” Spears said. “Some get kind of jittery when they see it go from 100 percent to 58 percent; then it jumps back up, but that’s the nature of reservoirs — particularly here in West Texas. We actually have to build reservoirs larger here than in East Texas because we have these pulse events where we need to capture that water. We would have loved to capture that water from 2010 that went over the spillway.

“But, Lake Alan Henry has been created primarily for a drinking water supply. There are some people enjoying some of the amenities, like bass fishing and building homes, but it is primarily a drinking water lake.”

Fishing and Living on Lake Alan Henry

February 17, 2015 by Nicole Molter

“We fish it ’cause it’s the only water that’s around,” bass fisherman Bob Newman said as he and Jerry Roberts cast their lines on Lake Alan Henry.

Lake Alan Henry is located approximately 65 miles southeast of Lubbock and was built in 1993 as a reservoir by the city of Lubbock. The ongoing drought affects the area, which also serves as a recreational park and a home to several property owners and wildlife species.

Newman and Roberts, from Littlefield, Texas, started fishing Lake Alan Henry in 1996 and said they have noticed the drop in Lake Alan Henry’s water level.

“I was the first one out of our club that fished it,” Roberts said, “That was when you still had to unload on the dirt instead of a concrete ramp. It was 150 feet from the water, and the fishing was fantastic. You could come down here and catch fish, and it just gradually declined — like all new lakes do.”

Trey Kram, game warden for Scurry and Garza Counties, said Summer 2014 was the lowest he has ever seen the lake during his five years working with Texas Parks and Wildlife. He pointed at buoys in the lake marking areas where the water is too low for boats to safely go.

“There were rocks and stumps sticking up and crop damage to boats,” Kram said, “because there were obstacles in the water that hadn’t been there before. So, even people that knew the lake were hitting things because they’ve never had to worry about running their boats on some of these places.”

Aubrey Spears, the city of Lubbock director of water utilities, said inflows and evaporation affect lake levels. He said heavy rains in 2010 filled up Lake Alan Henry and nine feet of water went over the spillway. By the end of 2010, the area was in drought conditions again.

“We typically get about 19 inches of rain a year,” Spears said. “We only got 5 inches that year, which is the least amount we have ever received on record in about 100 years of keeping record of rainfall in this area. It was also the hottest on record, so there was a lot of evaporation, so we didn’t have a lot of inflow. There wasn’t a lot going into Lake Alan Henry.”

Roberts said he and Newman have also noticed the drought at Lake Alan Henry and other lakes in Texas.

“Well the drought has certainly had an impact on our lakes,” Roberts said. “I used to fish Fork quite a bit and Mckenzie and Stanford. Spence was never fuller than 35 feet low.”

Lindsay Masso has been coming to Lake Alan Henry since 1996 with her significant other, Bruce. The couple has been progressively building onto a lake house that started as a loft over a carport. As she pointed out her living room windows at an oak tree damaged by fire, she remembered the scorched ranches and charred roadsides along U.S. Highway 84.

Masso said she and Bruce almost lost their lake home in June 2011 during a wildfire. A neighbor had some welders building a carport on a day when the wind was blowing 30 mph, and the welding crew accidentally started a fire with sparks from their equipment.

“We lost trees that were 150 years old,” Masso said. “I was sick because I had fell in love with this lot ‘cause you know the trees, the big old oaks that are here, are one of a kind.”

Amidst the rocky landscape and mesquite and oak trees is wildlife — including white-tailed deer, coyote, feral hogs, bobcats, great blue heron and bobwhite quail. Trey Kram said the coyote and feral hogs have not been greatly affected by the drought.

Photo by Kaitlin Thogmartin — Trey Kram, game warden

“Hogs are one thing we don’t have a shortage of,” Kram said. “They’re just so adaptable. I don’t know much that can hurt them.”

On the other hand, Kram said the quail population has been hit hardest.

“Every other year it’s been horrible,” Kram said, “absolutely horrible to the point where I can say I think I’ve checked a quail hunter a couple times this year, but prior to that, in the past three years, I don’t think I have checked a quail hunter. Even the guys that were quail hunters and were hung ho would just let them go in the hopes they would come back.”

Lake Alan Henry has been stocked with several species of fish, including flathead catfish, white crappie and largemouth bass. The lake was once well known for the largemouth bass, but the population has shrunk partly due to the drought and the increasing spotted bass population. Kram said the spotted bass are known for aggressiveness.

Kram said the lake was once stocked with smallmouth bass and walleye but he has not checked any fishermen who have caught either one during his time as game warden.

Spears said the city of Lubbock has yet to tap the full potential of the lake.

“Some get kind of jittery when they see it go from 100 percent to 58 percent,” Spears said. “Then it jumps back up, but that’s the nature of reservoirs, particularly here in West Texas. We actually have to build reservoirs larger here than in East Texas because we have these pulse events where we need to capture that water. We would have loved to capture that water from 2010 that went over the spillway.”

Lindsay Masso said she and Bruce, as well as many other residents, know they need to conserve water.

“Water is like gold now,” Masso said. “It is very important that we conserve it.”

The Crop That Will Save South Plains Agriculture

February 17, 2015 by Sarah Self-Walbrick

Looking across the South Plains during a certain time of year yields a sight of snow white cotton from as far as the eye can see. The little cloud puffs are what West Texas is famous for. But, soon the area may be known for another crop.

According to Chuck West, Ph.D., a professor in the department of plant and soil science and a top researcher for the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation, sorghum is the crop of West Texas’ future.

West said sorghum is a forage crop. He said sorghum is used as food for animals, particularly cattle. The price of beef is high right now, with large cows being sold for almost $300 a head. With a price like that, sorghum is becoming more important to area farmers and ranchers.

“This offers an option for producers in the area to switch from some of their high water consuming crops to lower water consuming pasture, forage crop that can then be grazed or fed to the animals,” West said, “and end up making some good profit.”

With no end to the drought happening any time soon, West said low-water crops like sorghum are becoming more reliable than other options. He said sorghum does not need to be irrigated as often or as much to be fruitful. Sorghum only needs 20 to 22 inches of irrigation to be successful, while most cotton species need anywhere from 16 to 40 inches in dry climates.

West said other forage crops, such as old world bluestem grass, are being produced in higher quantities in the dry Texas area. West said many farmers are planting different crops throughout their land in order to produce the most profit.

“People are now diversifying there, instead of putting an entire pivot of cotton; they may do half a circle of cotton irrigated, the other half, maybe, dry land cotton or dry land sorghum,” West said. “Next time you’re up in an airplane looking down on a circle, you’ll notice that more and more of them are not uniform full circles. They’ve got different textures and different pieces of the pie.”

Ken Rainwater, Ph.D., former director of the Texas Tech University Water Resources Center and professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering, agreed sorghum is a profitable crop in West Texas. He said farmers who switch to low-water crops like sorghum now rather than later are doing more for the current water stability issue.

“People are already making those conversions, making crop choices, and you’ll see that continue to happen,” Rainwater said. “Each farmer is making annual choices typically based on the farm bills and the risks they manage, insurance payments and all those things about which crops to raise and when to plant them and how to get an acceptable amount of yield.”

Tech professor and agriculture economist Darren Hudson, Ph.D., also agreed dry land crops are the best choice in today’s West Texas climate. He said farming techniques that will alleviate the need for more irrigation are better choices economically.

“A lot of farmers maybe switch to grain sorghum instead of growing corn. They’ll grow grain sorghum, which requires less water. Things like that. Limited tillage systems where they don’t turn the soil over as much. It increases the chemical use but decreases the water requirement. There’s a number of strategies out there.”

West said researchers are focusing on sorghum and other dry land crops to learn more about how they can help West Texas farmers.