Aquifer district expecting unprecedented drought declaration

The Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District says that flow from Barton Springs is near the level that would require the district to declare it has reached Stage IV Exceptional Drought. As the district reports, “crossing into Stage IV drought status would result in significant pumping restrictions and permanent reclassification for certain District permittees.”

Although the conservation district has been in Stage III drought since October 2022, scientists say Barton Springs’ discharge “is on a downward trajectory and could cross the district’s Stage IV threshold in the coming weeks for the first time in our 36-year history.”

District spokesperson Shay Hlavaty reported that on July 24, officials from the district and the United States Geological Survey conducted field measurements and found the springs’ 10-day average flow to be 16 cubic feet per second (CFS). She explained that the district’s exceptional drought threshold is 14 CFS. This is significantly lower than Barton Springs’ average discharge of 68 CFS, as recorded daily since 1978.

The USGS has a gauge that measures the water flow every 15 minutes, she said. Those measurements are averaged at the end of each day. An employee of the district and a representative of the USGS go to the springs together once a month to make sure the instruments are working correctly.

If the flow reaches 14 CFS, the district will enter Stage IV, Hlavaty said. At this point, the district is preparing for the stage IV declaration and urging community members both within and outside the district to conserve water to minimize depletion of water from all sources. Hlavaty said the agency is expecting to enter Stage IV within one to three months.

The district reaches from South Austin to San Marcos and includes the cities of Buda and Kyle and customers served by Creedmoor Maha Water Corp. Those customers, as well as some people who get their water from wells, will be the most impacted by the Stage IV declaration.

Hlavaty said that although the district does not enforce restrictions on individual users, the cities and the water corporation will tell users what they are allowed to do and what they are asked to refrain from doing. Those things might include washing cars, filling or refilling swimming pools and running water fountains, she said.

Although the district does not make rules for end users, they do tell cities, for example, how much water they are allowed to pump from the aquifer. If the city violates the rules, they can be fined, Hlavaty said.

The only way out of this problem is for the aquifer to receive heavy rain. Although Travis and Hays counties did receive some rain in the spring, it was not sufficient to fill the aquifer, she said. KXAN provides a look at rainfall in Austin for each month so far this year. Although there was an abundance of rain in April, during other months, especially June and July, Austin received only a fraction of normal precipitation.

Kyle currently allows automatic irrigation once a week from 7 to 10 p.m. People watering by hand can water any day from 7 to 10 p.m. The same rules apply to people washing cars and trucks. Violators may be fined up to $2,000.

The city of Buda has enacted rules similar to Kyle’s, but has also passed an ordinance that will take effect if the district or the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority take certain actions in response to a drought.

Photo by USGS, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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