Whether you are managing water or dealing with a water management entity, we can help you achieve your goals. This page discusses the foundations of Texas water management so that you can understand how your needs fit into the overall scheme of Texas water management.
Where Texas Gets Its Water
Droughts
Water Planning
Desired Future Conditions
Contact Us for Help in Managing Water
WHERE TEXAS GETS ITS WATER
In Texas, approximately 40% of our water consumption is supplied by reservoirs. Reservoirs contain “surface water” which is owned by the state. They are constructed and owned by water providers, such as utilities, and are regulated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Groundwater provides approximately 60% of our consumable water resource. Texas law recognizes that a landowner owns the groundwater beneath the surface estate. The key to re-filling the ground and waterways with water is rain, and the technical term is “recharge.” Surface runoff of rain is collected into waterways, which fill our reservoirs. Other rain water infiltrates the ground, to become groundwater.
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DROUGHTS
Since rain both refills our reservoirs and recharges our groundwater, Texas basically gets most if not all of its water from rain. This is why droughts occurring in Texas cause such concern. The worst drought in recorded Texas history began in 1950 and lasted 7 years. It destroyed much of the state’s agriculture and caused 244 of the state’s 254 counties to be declared federal disaster areas. This led the Texas Legislature to create the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB).
More recently, in the summer of 2006 the Northern and Eastern suburbs of Dallas were experiencing an 18 month drought with no end in sight. The lakes serving that area dropped to alarmingly low levels. Jim Chapman Lake was at 15% of its capacity, while Lake Lavon was at only 36 percent. The end of the water supply was in sight, and there was no backup. The area was at Stage 3 Emergency, and approached a Stage 4 condition which would have eliminated all lawn watering and strict rationing. In Stage 3, conservation efforts were required, and Plano issued more than 6,000 fines to “water hogs.” Fortunately, small rains came in late 2006, and then big rains recharged the area in 2007. But this experience with even a mild drought opened many modern eyes.
Droughts cannot be planned, but they must be survived. To do that, water must be managed, and with management comes legal rights, restrictions, duties and responsibilities. And fights.
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WATER PLANNING
The foundation of water management is water planning, and no state exerts more effort in water planning than Texas. Not to imply that forecasts and research produce completely accurate results, but no other state knows with such precision how much water it has and how much it will have in the future. Every five years the TWDB produces a State Water Plan. The first one came out in 1961. The current plan was completed in 2007.
The State has 16 Regional Water Planning Areas, each one developing a water plan for that region. Internet website links to the current state water plan and those regional planning areas with websites can be found on our Links page.
Within regional water planning areas, groundwater conservation districts (GCDs) are the state's preferred method of groundwater management. We expect to see more GCDs formed each year. Beginning in 2010, GCDs must use Managed Available Groundwater estimates, determined based on Desired Future Conditions, to control their planning and permitting.
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DESIRED FUTURE CONDITIONS
“Desired future conditions” are the future of water planning. House Bill 1763, passed in 2005, directs GDCs in groundwater management areas (GMAs) to jointly identify management goals to control the permitting of groundwater by those GCDs. Desired future conditions is what it sounds like: what do you (GCD) want the condition of this aquifer to look like in the future? This process is already well under way. By 2010, the Desired Future Condition of each aquifer in each GMA must be final.
Once the Desired Future Condition for a GMA is determined, the TWDB then provides each GCD with the amount of “managed available groudwater” in their future planning (and permitting). GCDs and regional water planning groups must use these estimates of managed available groundwater in their future planning. The bottom line here is that planning will determine the management of water in the future more than ever before.
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CONTACT US FOR HELP MANAGING WATER
We can provide guidance to GCDs, wholesale water providers, and retail water providers as they comply with state statutes and regulations, define future conditions, resolve disagreements between districts, issue permits, and deal with potential and actual water users.
Please visit our Texas Water News page to see what’s current in water news, and contact us at 972-381-9800 to schedule an appointment when you need assistance in managing water. We look forward to helping you.
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