We’re not spending enough on increasing our water supplies.
Texas communities will need to spend $174 billion in the next 50 years to avert a severe water crisis, a new state analysis revealed Thursday. That’s more than double the $80 billion projected four years ago, when the Texas Water Development Board last passed a state water plan.
The three-member board presiding over the agency authorized the highly anticipated draft blueprint Thursday, the first administrative step toward adopting the water development board’s plans for the next 50 years. The plan, released every five years, encompasses the projects that 16 regional water planning groups in Texas said are the most urgent, water development board officials said.
The board’s latest estimates come as the state’s water supply faces numerous threats. Growing communities across Texas are scrambling to secure water, keep up with construction costs and cope with a yearslong drought. This week, Corpus Christi officials said the city may be just months away from declaring a water emergency. Meanwhile, other rural cities by the Coastal Bend are rapidly drilling wells to avoid a crisis. Residents in North Texas have also been bracing for groundwater shortages.
In an effort to restrain the crisis, lawmakers last year called an election in which voters approved a $20 billion boost for communities to use on water-related expenses. The water development board’s estimate shows that what lawmakers proposed on the ballot falls dramatically short of the needed cash, experts said.
“What this number tells me at the end of the day is if we don’t get serious about (funding water projects), there are going to be serious consequences for Texas,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network. “Even with the billion-dollar-a-year plan kicking in, it’s not going to be enough to offset the costs of the projects that are going to have to be executed.”
The new estimate accounts for 3,000 projects, from regional infrastructure upgrades to smaller endeavors such as drilling new water wells. Texas’ water supplies are expected to drop by roughly 10% between 2030 and 2080, according to the water plan. In that same time frame, the maximum amount of water communities can draw is also expected to decline by 9%.
The 80-page plan notes approximately 6,700 recommended strategies that would add water to the state’s dwindling portfolio. The recommendations — which are not accounted for in the cost — include developing new supplies from aquifer storage and recovery, brackish groundwater, desalination and recycled water. It also calls for water conservation.
The report suggested that if Texas does not implement the plans and recommendations, the state is one severe drought away from an estimated $91 billion in economic damages in 2030.
See here for some background. We had a bad drought just three years ago, so this isn’t a remote threat. One other expert quoted in the story suggests the real price tag is more like $250 billion, and while that’s a staggering number, it’s a number for a 50-year timeline. The state of Texas can afford to spend $5 billion a year on this. One might argue we can’t afford not to. You can find a copy of the report here, and you can give feedback on it through the end of May.
And since that story mentioned Corpus Christi:
As a historic drought in South Texas deepens, parched cities along the coastal bend are following Corpus Christi’s playbook and racing to drill their way out of a crisis.
But as more and more cities turn to groundwater instead of surface water, experts warn that they risk exhausting the area’s aquifers and should only use wells as a temporary solution.
Alice is working on getting a second well online by May. Mathis is currently drilling two. And Beeville, which already has four, finished drilling a new well this week and is expected to begin pulling water from it by the end of the year. It also has two offline wells ready to use as backups.
The rural cities are following in the footsteps of Corpus Christi, the region’s largest city and its biggest water supplier, which recently scrambled to drill around a dozen wells to meet demand.
The city is under pressure to find new sources of water for its 300,000 residents, as well as 200,000 other customers that its water system serves across seven counties — and that doesn’t count one of the nation’s largest petrochemical corridors and the country’s top port for crude oil exports.
Alice, Beeville and Mathis are among Corpus Christi’s water customers.
The city’s main reservoirs — Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir — have shriveled to 8% capacity during the drought and the city is depending on a patchwork of temporary solutions to meet demand, including the wells. City Manager Peter Zanoni has said the city is within months of declaring a water emergency, the point at which it has just 180 days’ worth of supply left.
As cities turn to groundwater, water experts are warning that the aquifers won’t be able to adequately recharge during a deepening drought.
“If what goes in is less than what goes out through pumping, then you are going to see that resource depleting,” said Dorina Murglet, a professor of hydrogeology at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. She said cities should turn to groundwater only in an emergency.
Corpus Christi and Mathis’ wells tap into the Evangeline Aquifer. Alice’s wells draw water from the Jasper Aquifer, which sits below the Evangeline. Beeville has wells drilled into both.
It’s difficult to measure how much water is safe to pull from aquifers before depleting them, Murglet said, which is why it’s important for the cities to communicate with each other.
“Remember that political boundaries are not hydrologic boundaries,” she added. “It’s all interconnected.”
See here for some background. Maybe Greg Abbott could spend a little less time harassing Houston and a little more time engaging in trying to solve actual problems? Just a thought. I don’t have any good advice for these smaller towns. They’re at most a small contributor to the problem, but they will definitely feel the effect.