TCEQ delays decision on emergency drought relief request

"We are those folks being asked to bear 100 percent of the burden of this drought," said Ronald Gertson, a rice farmer and chairman of the Colorado Water Issues Committee, which represents the rice farmers.

Austin Water Utility Director Greg Meszaros also addressed TCEQ commissioners during the lengthy public hearing. The utility has saved 86,000 acre-feet of water the past two years through conservation methods, he said, despite serving a large customer base—approximately 1 million customers and growing.

"Without Austinites' sacrifice, the lakes would have already plunged below 600,000 acre-feet, and we would have declared a drought worse than the drought of record," Meszaros said. "However, those sacrifices come with operational challenges that pose a risk to public health and safety."

For example, he said, flowing water is necessary to maintain Austin's water storage tanks and extensive pipe system. During drought conditions, the utility has taken special measures to keep its water supply from going stagnant, he said.

"If lake levels decline too rapidly we'll face many more of those kinds of public health and safety challenges," Meszaros said. "They'll multiply and intensify across our utility."

However, most of the arguments posed during the meeting addressed economic woes and not risks to public health and safety, Gertson said.

Existing regulations require LCRA to cut off irrigation water to rice farmers once lake levels drop below 600,000 acre-feet. At that time, firmwater customers, which are guaranteed water, such as Austin are also forced to curtail water usage by 20 percent.

But emergency orders prevent such conservation methods from occurring, Gertson said.

"What these emergency orders do is they separate those two things such as the irrigators get cut off well in advance of the firmwater customers being forced to take serious conservation," he said. "That was never the intention of the water management plan."

LCRA board members voted 8-7 to ask the state for emergency relief after contentious debate Nov. 19. TCEQ Executive Director Richard A. Hyde announced his support for the relief request on Jan. 27. No time or exact date has been confirmed for the SOAH hearing, which is likely to occur Feb. 20 or 21.