Collaboration on water management continues

Members of the Water Management Plan Advisory Committee on Thursday took their first look at potential scenarios for managing the water in the Highland Lakes.

The 16-member committee is helping LCRA update the plan that determines how water in lakes Travis and Buchanan, the region’s water supply reservoirs, is administered. The plan establishes how much water is available during a drought as lake levels fall. It does so by setting trigger levels at which customers should conserve water or when LCRA can reduce or even cut off water to certain customers.

Thursday’s scenarios were the first in a series the committee will review as it tries to reach consensus on how LCRA should update the plan. The committee’s task is to provide LCRA input. LCRA's Board and ultimately the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will have to approve the plan's revisions.

The committee contains members from each of the major groups that depend on the Highland Lakes: cities, industries, agriculture, the environment and lake area businesses and residents. The final group is interested in lake levels because of their impact on local businesses and recreation.

The scenarios reviewed Thursday represented different alternatives for supplying water to each of the major interest groups. More scenarios will be developed and evaluated in the coming months as committee members suggest changes to how the lakes are managed. LCRA’s staff will plug those suggestions into a complex computer model that simulates the Highland Lakes system so members can see how each suggestion affects the water available for each interest.

“This is a balancing process,” LCRA Water Supply Strategist James Kowis told the group.

The committee started its work in July and is scheduled to finish in June. Much of the work to date has been an education process for members on the needs and demands of the diverse groups that depend on the Highland Lakes. Lakes Travis and Buchanan serve as drinking water reservoirs for 1.1 million Central Texans and also serve the needs of power plants, industry, agriculture and businesses up and down the river. On Thursday many committee members indicated they needed more information in coming meetings on the environmental needs of the Colorado River and Matagorda Bay.

The advisory committee will hold its next meeting Dec. 16 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.