Cedar Park, Leander join area water coalition

The Lower Colorado River Authority's March 1 deadline to cut off downstream rice farmers from Highland Lakes water passed undramatically this year.

Lakes Travis and Buchanan combined to hold less than 823,000 acre-feet of water—or 41 percent of capacity—by the deadline, well less than the 850,000 acre-feet minimum threshold, prompting LCRA to enact its second emergency order in as many years.

"Last time [2012 emergency order deadline] was very, very close—less than a 1,000 acre-feet difference, so it was tight," said Jo Karr Tedder, president of the Central Texas Water Coalition, which represents lake-area businesses and residents.

Southeastern Texas rice farmers will be cut off from the drought-depleted Highland Lakes, resulting in 55,000 acres of lost rice farming production, said Ronald Gertson, a rice farmer and chairman of the Colorado Water Issues Committee, which represents rice farmers.

Had the pending 2012 water management plan—now under review by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality—been approved, it would have allowed rice farmers water, Gertson said.

"Not a lot of folks realize that," he said, as Gertson and other organized groups shift focus to the pending plan.

Instead, the existing 2010 water management plan was trumped by the second-consecutive emergency drought order. TCEQ has approximately 12 months to make a ruling after the plan is submitted, meaning a decision on the pending 2012 plan should come soon.

"The plan should be the plan—we shouldn't be departing from it, especially right after it is put into place," Gertson said. "When you have the potential for having emergency orders year after year, then something is not right."

Many LCRA firm water customers, which are mandated water before downstream rice farmers, have expressed interest in keeping the 2012-approved plan intact and have consequently formed their own coalition.

Cedar Park and Leander each agreed to join the Highland Lakes Firm Water Customers Cooperative, joining municipal partners Burnet and Pflugerville as well as the Lakeway Municipal Utility District, Travis County Water Control and Improvement District No. 17, and the West Travis County Public Utility Agency. Austin city officials will also be involved but will participate in an advisory role.

Each city paid $4,000 into the cooperative for legal support. Additional expenses will require individual city council approval.

"I think it presents a united, well-coordinated opinion on behalf of all the cities and utility districts that are participating," said Leander Utilities Director Pat Womack, who was selected to represent the city on the coalition. "It also pools our resources."

Katherine Woerner, Cedar Park director of community affairs, was also picked to serve on the cooperative's executive committee. She called the coalition the firm water customer equivalent of CWIC and CTWC.

"We want to be proactive because there may be some contention to the plan or people who reject elements of it," Woerner told Cedar Park City Council. "[The cooperative] also gives the group legal standing should there be any contested hearings at TCEQ."

Karr Tedder said a TCEQ decision could come by the end of March. While the plan is not ideal given the looming drought conditions, she said, anything less would be a step back.

"You can only live in denial for so long," she said. "I don't care who you are or what part of the basin you're on—or if you're running the basin."