Thursday, June 27, 2013

Central Texas still in a severe drought

Texas WATR News: As the region heads into what is forecast to be a hot, dry summer, the Lower Colorado River Authority is reminding residents that Central Texas is still in the grasp of a severe drought and that everyone needs to do their part to conserve and use water wisely.

Because of the extended period of dry weather, the amount of water flowing into lakes Travis and Buchanan, called inflows, has been reduced to record-low levels for several years.

The lakes serve as reservoirs for more than a million Central Texans and businesses and industries throughout the lower Colorado River basin. The combined storage of both stands at 38 percent full, and weather forecasts hold little hope of significant relief in the near future.

“We’re not going to run out of water, but everyone needs to understand that this is a serious situation,” LCRA General Manager Becky Motal said. “It’s going to take a significant amount of rain over an extended period of time to refill our lakes. We don’t know when that will happen, so it’s critical that everyone follow the watering restrictions put in place by their local water providers and conserve water wherever and whenever they can.”...

Lake Travis in central Texas, during the 2011 drought, shot by Erik A. Ellison, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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