Round Rock, Georgetown work to find common ground

When the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts released a study Feb. 6 calling the 2011 drought the worst the state has ever seen, it came as no surprise to city officials in Round Rock and Georgetown who have been grappling with low water levels at Lake Georgetown for months.

The shared water source—which, along with Stillhouse Hollow Lake, provides water for both cities—hit levels so low this year that both cities have maintained watering restrictions continually since the beginning of last summer.

Now, as Lake Georgetown sits at 54 percent full during a time of year when it is typically near capacity, the drought has raised regional issues of water management, conservation and use that both Round Rock and Georgetown have had to tackle with an eye to their neighbor.

"We've both got a straw in the lake," Round Rock Mayor Alan McGraw said. "In some form or fashion, there's a lot of relationships going on, so it seems like it would be ripe for some collaboration among all of us."

The lakes

Central to Georgetown's and Round Rock's water management issues are Lake Georgetown and Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

The lakes are connected by a pipe that pumps water from Stillhouse to Lake Georgetown and are part of a system managed by the Brazos River Authority.

Round Rock, Georgetown, Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District and the Chisholm Trail Special Utilities District all pull water from Lake Georgetown.

When the lakes are at their highest levels, Stillhouse Hollow Lake's water reaches 622 feet above sea level, while Lake Georgetown tops out at 791 feet.

"Unless we have a repeat of the drought of record or a worse drought, those lakes have enough water," Georgetown Utility Director Glenn Dishong said, referring to the multi-year drought of the 1950s.

The drought of 2011, however, has had a significant effect on lake levels. As of Feb. 21, Lake Georgetown was 14 feet below its peak and about 54 percent full. Stillhouse was 16 feet low and contained only 61 percent of its capacity.

While those numbers are low for this time of year—Round Rock Utilities Director Michael Thane said the lake is typically near full at this point—winter rains have raised the lake's level. When pumps between Stillhouse and Lake Georgetown broke down in October, Lake Georgetown had just 35 percent of its capacity available.

Round Rock's intake at Lake Georgetown sits 20 feet higher than Georgetown's, meaning Round Rock would run out of water well before its neighbor to the north would. That fact caused great concern with Round Rock city officials.

"One of the concerns I have was 'Our intake is deeper than your intake, so we're not as concerned about it,'" McGraw said.

Georgetown Mayor George Garver, however, said the levels of the intakes were something the city was concerned with.

"Now, can we and should we use water to the detriment of someone else? No, heaven sakes no. We are obligated, morally, if not legally, to work with our surrounding cities, and in this case, the only real surrounding city is Round Rock," Garver said.

Round Rock's usage

At issue is the difference in watering schedules between the two towns—Round Rock limits watering to one day a week, but Georgetown allows two. Round Rock officials say that is causing some confusion.

"People don't understand. In other words, we're saying you can water once a week, and our neighbor to the north can water twice a week, and we have the same water source. Why is that? That's what they ask," Thane said.

Round Rock implemented its more stringent watering schedule Nov. 24 in order to conserve water in light of the drought. The schedule is Stage 2(b) of the city's drought contingency plan, a step that did not exist until City Council approved it in November.

Thane said Round Rock uses about 180 gallons per person per day but has a goal of lowering that to about 160 gallons per day.

John Hofmann, central and lower region manager for the BRA, said Round Rock—the largest of the four users—draws more water from Lake Georgetown than the other three users combined.

Irrigation makes up the bulk of Round Rock's usage. When outdoor watering was banned in October, Round Rock went from using about 38 million gallons of water per day to about 13 million.

Georgetown's usage

Georgetown, meanwhile, is in Stage 2 of its drought contingency plan, but that stage allows for watering twice a week.

However, Dishong said it was not necessary for the city to go to a once-per-week schedule because most customers only watered that much now as it was, and the only change would be an increased cost for their enforcement division to be out enforcing the lower schedule.

Hofmann agreed.

"I think they line up closer than people think they do," Hofmann said of the cities' respective Stage 2 watering restrictions.

Hofmann said that, because Round Rock draws more water from Lake Georgetown than all of the lake's other users combined, the effect of Round Rock going to once-a-week watering was similar to Georgetown drawing down to twice a week.

Dishong said Georgetown citizens average about 200 gallons per day.

Conservation

"Part of the problem has been the lakes have been full for us, and so we've developed bad habits that now we're having to break, and bad habits are hard to break," McGraw said.

It was only a few years ago that Round Rock began working to protect its water supply through conservation. Prior to that, Thane said Round Rock was "not a very conservation-oriented city."

"We want to be a pretty community, but we want to be smart about it," Thane said.

To that end, both cities are working on ways to conserve water by effecting change in people's irrigation habits. Changes to native plants, greater utilization of rocks and other landscaping that does not require watering, and reusing treated water are all ways the cities are looking to address their water consumption rates.

Garver pointed toward Phoenix, where he used to live, as a model of a city that conserves water by using rock landscaping for yards and watering only trees and plants.

"The question is to what extent we can begin to think about less irrigation," Garver said. "If two-thirds of the water that we're using [is for irrigation], if we could trim that back by a percentage, that in and of itself takes a burden off of some of the components of conservation."

During the past summer, about two-thirds of the total water use in Round Rock and Georgetown was irrigation. Thane said in a typical summer it is closer to a bit more than half the water use.

"That's why ... when you talk conservation you don't talk about how do you [conserve] water in your restaurant or in your home," Thane said. "That's not your biggest impact. It's that water in your yard or water that's not necessary for basic needs."

So while the cities are tackling other methods of conservation—such as rebates for more efficient toilets and automatic meter reading programs that let individuals track their use—the biggest bullseye is on how people keep their grass green.

"If the water issue continues to be, and it will, a major thing, we're going to have to rethink, not only in Georgetown but regionally, the question of irrigation," Garver said.