Over the next 10 years, demand for water managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority is expected to increase about 10 percent, putting even more strain on the Highland Lakes and Colorado River system.

The increase will be caused by significant growth in the region’s cities and industry, but will be partly countered by a decrease in the water used by downstream rice farmers. That’s due to conservation efforts and a loss of agricultural acreage, according to the state’s Region K water planning group.

The reality of increasing demands on the region’s water supply was front and center at the Sept. 14 meeting of the Water Management Plan Advisory Committee. The 16-member committee is in the midst of a yearlong process to provide input on how LCRA should update the plan that determines how water from lakes Travis and Buchanan is managed. The lakes are LCRA’s water supply reservoirs and help provide water to 1.1 million Central Texans as well as businesses, industry, agriculture and the environment.

The plan establishes how much water is available during drought as lake levels fall. It does so by setting trigger levels at which customers must conserve water or at which LCRA can reduce or even cut off water to certain customers.

The growing water demands of cities and industry make it more likely LCRA will need to reduce water available for downstream agriculture and the environment in the future. That’s the result of a preliminary analysis that looked at what would happen in 2020 if the Water Management Plan is not updated.

The advisory committee’s members represent the major interests that rely on the lakes’ water: cities, industry, agriculture, lake area residents and businesses and the environment. Their job is to advise LCRA on balancing the needs and impacts as demands on lakes Buchanan and Travis increase. LCRA will use the committee’s input to revise the plan before it is presented to the public and LCRA’s Board of Directors in 2012, and then ultimately to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, for approval.

On Sept. 14, the committee continued to familiarize itself with the technical computer models it will depend on to update the plan. It also reviewed information about LCRA’s Highland Lakes system, its irrigation operations and the farmers that depend on the water for their crops.

LCRA manages six lakes and dams up and down the Colorado River. Operations focus on flood control and water supply, explained Karen Bondy, LCRA Manager of Water Resources.

LCRA owns and operates three irrigation divisions in the lower basin and owns the water rights to a fourth. The irrigation divisions contain more than 1,000 miles of canals and nine major pump stations. In an average year, the divisions supply 360,000 acre-feet of water to area farmers. That’s roughly two-thirds of the water used in the basin on an average year. This year, about 70,000 acres of rice were irrigated with LCRA water.

Farmers use most of the water in LCRA’s system and pay less per acre foot than cities and industry. However, farmers’ water can be reduced or even cut off in times of drought. Most cities and industry buy firm water, which LCRA guarantees through a repeat of the worst drought on record.

There are several significant ongoing conservation efforts to reduce downstream farmers’ water needs. They are:

• A program to precision-level fields. To date more than 22,000 acres have been leveled, saving roughly 5,570 acre-feet of water a year.
• A program to measure the amount of water being used in the Garwood Irrigation Division. This will allow LCRA to more carefully measure the irrigation water and should save at least 2,400 acre-feet of water a year when implemented in 2013.
• A program to install new check structures in the Gulf Coast Division’s canal system. This program will be funded in part by a Bureau of Reclamation grant. The new check structures will allow LCRA to more efficiently control and hold water in canals and should save about 2,600 acre-feet a year.
• A new rate structure in the Lakeside and Gulf Coast divisions that will charge farmers who use too much water as much as three times the base rate. The new rate structure was supported by many of the downstream farmers to encourage conservation and eliminate waste.

At the end of the month, committee members will take a trip to the lower basin and tour the irrigation divisions and rice fields. Members will also visit Matagorda Bay to learn more about how water from lakes Travis and Buchanan helps keep the bay’s estuaries healthy.

In October’s meeting, committee members from each of the major interest groups will make presentations on how and why water from the Highland Lakes is important to them.

The advisory committee will hold its next meeting Oct. 14 at the Riverside Conference Center in Bastrop. For more information on the Water Management Plan or the Advisory Committee please go to www.lcra.org/watermanagementplan.