Water planners urged to base needs on centuries, not decades, of drought data (Texas)

AAS ^ | 12.22.2011 | Farzad Mashhood

[wolfcreek]

That, to me, is very significant. Frankly I didn’t believe they would go there.

Show things are getting pretty dire.

[X-spurt]

Not promoting desal, but having spent more than a little time in Northern Chile, they are almost exclusively on desal water for municipal, business and mining. Rarely hear much complaining about desal costing too much. Guess its relative to the cost of no water.

[luvie]

No joke! We are having a water pipeline built from some wells west of us but it’s going to be a while before it’s finished and in use.

Government waste is a crying shame, but God’s in control of rain and I’m praying hard that He will take pity on this barren land. :(

[GeronL]

bump

[Ditter]

Here in Houston we have already lost huge 150+ year old oaks and mature pines. Gone dead not coming back. It is heart breaking to drive through Memorial Park in the middle of town and see the dead trees. I think we are still 30” behind our normal annual rain. I think I just heard a local TV weather mans say that because of weather patterns for next year do not look good for an end to the drought. I hope I misunderstood him.

[luvie]

You didn’t misunderstand. I’ve been hearing that, too. I know you guys are really stressed down there.

We’ve had less than 5 inches since September, 2010. So many dead trees, no undergrowth in the pastures and dead lawns as far as the eye can see, even before winter-kill.

We need a miracle!

[Ditter]

We got 2” last night. It won’t save the trees that are gone
but we are very thankful.

[Arrowhead1952]

What I heard from my neighbor was that they hired a Hydro mulcher to mow the trees. That thing is a huge shredder on a rice farming tractor that rolls up to a tree, they raise it up and drop the blades onto the tree. Nothing left but cedar mulch.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The bottom line is that Texas has two of the three things it needs. It has part of the Gulf Coast, so it has unlimited water, though it is salty. And it also has a vast amount of natural gas, so it can both desalinate that water and pump it inland to great reservoirs, year around.

The only other thing that Texas needs is the will to do this.

What sweetens the deal is that once it is built, there will be an explosion of development in currently empty places in Texas. Entirely new cities. Vast amounts of capital and employment. Great prosperity. So it will pay for itself many times over.

And yes, I know that Texas is currently building some desalination plants. They already have over 100 small ones, but with new, scalable nanotechnolgy filters, they can be much larger and process much more water.

[Arrowhead1952]

Medina Lake is a nothing but a mudhole at the northern end.

"Medina Lake covers about 5,575 acres, has a length of 18 miles, a maximum width of three miles, and 110 miles of shoreline." From this site - Lake Medina

Lake Travis is 63.75 miles long, and its maximum width is 4.5 miles. The lake covers 18,929 acres, and its capacity is 1,953,936 acre-feet. The lake is considered full at an elevation of 681.1 msl. At this elevation the lake contains 382,092,882,600 gallons of water. There are 270 miles of shoreline around the lake. It has a maximum depth of 210 and an average depth of 62 feet. From this site - Lake Travis

Big difference in capacity between the two lakes and Travis is the main source for water for many cities and communities here.

Central Texas lakes slide show

Those islands are usually under water, but you can now drive across to the end. That boat ramp in the foreground is also closed.

[Sarajevo]

Yep. A big difference in capacity, but the commonality is that they’re both almost dry. I’m just glad that I’m not paying property tax on “waterfront” property.