Sunday, March 7, 1999
City’s unofficial phrase:
Plenty of water to use, not enough to waste
By ANTHONY WILSON
Staff Writer
Curtis Dawson pilots his pickup atop the Hubbard Creek Lake
dam, an elevated border that literally separates drought from
drenched.
To the right are the parched, dirty-brown hills of northern
Stephens County. To the left, the reservoir’s blue-green
waters slap up against the dam’s stony structure.
For Abilenians, the sight to the right is all too familiar.
Twenty months of drought have colored the city’s landscape
in dullish shades of beige.
The view to the left, however, offers the promise the city
won’t go thirsty. It’s a duty Dawson, the reservoir’s
chief maintenance man, aims to meet.
“You don’t know what the future holds for drought,’’
he said. “But regardless, if the cities need water, we’re
going to see that they get it. That’s the sole purpose for
this lake being built.”
Looking out over Hubbard’s cool, whitecapped waters, a
visitor can’t help but wonder what all the aqua-related hubbub
is about back in Abilene.
 |
| Dean Simpson throws for bait
from the expansive desert-like shoreline of Lake J.B. Thomas.
Simpson, a long-time local fisherman and lake resident, said
he can't remember the lake ever being so low. Lake Thomas is
at 3.3 percent of its capacity. |
El Niño-fueled showers that somehow dodged the Key City
dumped enough rain around Hubbard last spring to send spare water
tumbling over the lake’s spillway. Even now, nearly a year
later, the lake’s levels are just 5 feet below the spillway,
offering more than enough water to supply Abilene through 1999
— even if the city doesn’t receive a single droplet
of rainfall.
The concern lies in vastly shrunken Fort Phantom Hill Lake,
the city’s primary water source.
Phantom’s levels are more than 15 feet below the spillway.
Its elevation — the height of the water above sea level —
is a mere 5 feet above the point that ensures West Texas Utilities’
lakeside power plant can crank out electricity at full capacity.
The drought forced Abilene city officials to stop pumping water
from Phantom in December. Hubbard Creek Reservoir has temporarily
become the city’s primary water source, and it will continue
to be until rains refill Phantom.
Although Hubbard offers plenty of water, its two pipelines
can tote only 31 million gallons per day, meaning water would
have to be pulled from Phantom to meet summertime demands that
peak at 48.5 million gallons.
City Hall’s challenge is to convince consumers to peel
back their water usage, allowing the conservation of what little
reserve Phantom has left. At the same time, city officials are
carefully trying not to incite a panic among citizens who may
infer that Abilene is rapidly running out of water.
Hence City Hall’s new unofficial mantra: “We have
plenty of water to use. But we don’t have water to waste.”
Water sources
West Texans’ never-ending concern about droughts has triggered
the construction of all three of Abilene’s current-day water
supplies.
Early in its history, the city pinballed between water sources,
drawing the life-sustaining liquid from Lytle Lake, the city’s
first man-made reservoir, Lake Abilene and Lake Kirby. The latter
two still serve limited purposes.
Raw water from ruddy Lake Kirby is sold to irrigate local golf
courses, though nature may soon force a hiatus in that practice.
The outlet through which Kirby’s muddy waters are drawn won’t
be underwater much longer at the drought-depleted lake, where
herons perch in its midst on emerging sand bars.
Lake Abilene provides southside citizens at most a mere 1,675
acre-feet of water each year. In 1998, the lake offered only 1,200
acre-feet.
An acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre
1-foot deep in water. An acre-foot equals 325,651 gallons —
or the equivalent of 690,380 two-liter bottles of Pepsi.
The city stopped using Lake Abilene water in November when
it reached its safe yield, meaning the lake maintains a year’s
supply of water even if it doesn’t rain.
The dust-bowl years of the 1930s convinced city fathers to
build a reservoir on Big Elm Creek near Fort Phantom Hill. Construction
of Fort Phantom Hill Lake was completed in 1941, and a record
49 inches of rain that year filled it before the spillway was
even finished. WTU had to help the city finance the pipeline back
to town.
WTU uses the lake’s water as a cooling agent before dumping
it back into Phantom.
A state permit allows the city to divert 30,690 acre-feet of
water per year from Phantom. Of that, 25,690 acre-feet are for
municipal purposes, 4,000 acre-feet for industrial purposes and
1,000 acre-feet for irrigation.
The area’s worst-recorded drought, in 1953, prompted the
construction of Hubbard Creek Lake in the late 1950s. Operated
by the West Central Texas Municipal Water District, Hubbard provides
water to the district’s four member cities — Abilene,
Albany, Anson and Breckenridge.
The city didn’t begin pumping water from Hubbard until
the mid-1970s, and even then, Water Utilities Director Dwayne
Hargesheimer said, the city did so without rhyme or reason but
simply because the water supply was there.
That changed in 1985 when, after another serious drought in
‘84, the city adopted a plan to coordinate the uses of Phantom
and Hubbard, thereby maximizing the total supply.
Because Phantom offers the tastier water and its proximity
lessens pumping costs, it was tabbed as the city’s primary
water source. When needed, Hubbard, 55 miles to the northeast
near Breckenridge, supplements the Phantom supply.
The plan further calls for the city to overdraft from Phantom,
pulling more water than it would dare if Hubbard didn’t exist
so the lake can catch more water when the big rains come.
The coordinated use increases Abilene’s water supply by
about 7,000 acre-feet, giving the city on average about 51,000
acre-feet of water. That’s about 20,000 acre-feet above 1998’s
record usage.
Even after Hubbard’s addition, city leaders continued
to seek a long-range water source.
When TU Electric pulled out of a plan in the early 1980s to
help build the O.H. Ivie Reservoir near Coleman, Abilene dove
in.
The addition of another municipal user strengthened the bid
by Ivie’s owner, the Colorado River Municipal Water District,
for a state permit to divert and use the water. The Texas Legislature
outlawed such interbasin water transfers in 1997, but Abilene’s
contract with the CRMWD remains grandfathered.
Under Abilene’s contract with the CRMWD, which Abilene
City Manager Roy McDaniel helped negotiate, the city owns the
rights to 16.54 percent of Ivie’s safe yield, not to exceed
15,000 acre-feet of water per year. Abilene can “borrow”
extra water during droughts, repaying the debt by not using water
when it’s plentiful in Phantom.
In exchange, Abilene agreed to fund a proportionate amount
of the reservoir’s $65 million construction cost — about
$11 million — to be repaid with city water revenues.
Before the deal was consummated, O.H. Ivie, then the CRMWD’s
general manager, insisted the citizenry approve Abilene’s
participation in a referendum. Having just endured the drought
of 1984, voters overwhelmingly approved the project 6,791-241
in the summer of 1985.
John Grant, the water district’s current general manager,
complimented Abilene’s foresight.
“You’ve waited too long if you wait until you need
the water,” he said, noting that 19 years elapsed between
the CRMWD’s permit application and the initial delivery of
Ivie water.
McDaniel says Ivie assures Abilene of an adequate water supply
for at least the next 50 years. However, the city has not pumped
so much as a thimbleful of water from the reservoir.
And since the city called upon citizens to curtail their wasteful
water ways, McDaniel has spent much time explaining why Ivie remains
an untapped resource.
Why not Ivie?
Of the six cities Ivie serves, Abilene is the lone community
not pulling water from the reservoir.
Like Abilene, San Angelo and Midland have contracts to draw
Ivie water. Midland has done so for four years and San Angelo
since 1997. The reservoir, which is 75 percent full, also serves
the CRMWD’s three member cities: Big Spring, Odessa and Snyder.
The drought has forced all five communities to rely on Ivie
as their primary water source.
“We do have water in the reservoir, but we haven’t
seen a good rainfall in about 18 months,” Grant said. “I
wouldn’t say it’s critical, but we would like to see
it rain.”
McDaniel said the reason Abilene’s not using its allotted
Ivie water is simple: “We don’t need Ivie yet.”
McDaniel and Hargesheimer explained Abilene’s population
and water usage is not large enough to justify the $60 million
expense of building a pipeline, pumping stations and a treatment
facility to use Ivie water.
Repaying such debt would force the city to double its water
rates, they said. And then, they added, either the pipeline would
sit mostly unused and deteriorating or, to justify the investment,
the city would have to adopt Ivie as its backup water source and
stop pumping from Hubbard.
“Which would just be silly,” McDaniel said.
“It’d be like buying a Jaguar, keeping it in the
garage and driving it every four years,’’ said Linda
Simpson, assistant to the water utilities director. “It doesn’t
make sense to spend the money just to know the pipeline is there.”
Instead, the water department is upgrading and fortifying its
existing infrastructure, preparing for future population growth
and demands.
A $10.5 million expansion of the Northeast Water Treatment
Plant in 2001 will accommodate another 12 million gallons per
day.
The city recently completed construction of a $4.1 million
pipeline that can carry 14.4 million gallons per day from the
treatment plant to the Maple Street pump station.
Both projects were among $18 million in upgrades the Abilene
City Council endorsed in 1996.
The city plans another $3.5 million in water improvements,
mostly to boost pumping capacity, by 2010.
In the meantime, the city will pay off its second Hubbard pipeline
in 2005 and its portion of Ivie’s construction in 2016. City
Hall projects Abilene will need Ivie water at about that time.
Being debt-free will give the city greater flexibility in funding
the Ivie infrastructure: by raising consumer rates, by saving
money and paying cash, by financing the construction, or by using
some combination of the three.
City policy dictates that water department revenues, rather
than tax dollars, fund all water projects.
The city has spent about $120,000 purchasing about 75 percent
of the rights-of-way needed for the Ivie pipeline. McDaniel anticipates
little trouble acquiring the remaining property.
The drudgery of dredging
Using Ivie isn’t the only proposed solution to Abilene’s
water woes that has been trickling through town.
As often as Ivie is invoked, McDaniel has been pressed to dredge
Fort Phantom Hill Lake while the water’s down.
A cruise around the lake yields a boatload of alarming sights.
The shoreline has receded so drastically that inlet docks and
piers are hundreds of yards from the water. Launching water craft
has become impossible. And the lake would have to creep some 600
yards across dry, gritty ground to reach the cement spillway.
Perhaps the most telltale signs of the seriousness are two
abandoned grain silos usually anchored in the lake. Not only are
the silos far removed from the water, but the ground has hardened
enough to let cars drive up to the structures.
Although the lake has been lower, most notably in 1953 and
1984 when it was 21-plus feet below the spillway, Donny Dabney
has never seen such dire drought conditions.
“It’s a real concern,” said Dabney, a lakeside
resident who works in the water department. “And more so
to us because we see it every day. We see how low it’s getting.’’
Some citizens insist Phantom is ripe for dredging, but the
city manager says they are wrong.
McDaniel said dredging involves a barge sucking soil from a
lake bottom while the lake is full. The process, he said, is usually
limited to lakes with sandy bottoms. Phantom’s depths are
topped by clay, making it a poor candidate for dredging, he said.
He said the lakebed could be excavated, deepening the hole
so it could capture more rainwater, but he called the work cost-prohibitive.
The city last considered excavating the lake during the 1984
drought and found that Phantom would gain only 620 acre-feet at
a cost of $3.5 million. The water gained would have cost the city
$17.42 per 1,000 gallons — more than 12 times what it charges
consumers.
McDaniel said Phantom’s average water yield depends on
rainfall within its 387-square-mile watershed, not the size of
its hole.
Last year, Abilene received only 13.87 inches of rain, nearly
11 inches below its yearly average.
The piddling rain netted only 2,400 acre-feet of water for
Phantom, lowest in the lake’s history. Phantom averaged 31,412
acre-feet annually through its first 50 years.
McDaniel questioned whether Phantom’s watershed could
support a bigger lake.
“Excavating is not the answer,” he said. “It
doesn’t matter how big the hole is.”
Citizens have further challenged the release of water into
Deadman Creek.
McDaniel said wastewater that has been cleaned in accordance
with state law is dumped into the creek, where it eventually flows
into Possum Kingdom Lake in Palo Pinto County.
City officials have considered cleaning, treating and reusing
wastewater, which could be safely consumed, but they fear a public
backlash. El Paso is the only Texas city that has dared to recycle
wastewater.
“Are you ready to drink it?’’ McDaniel asked.
“I don’t think people are ready for that. People don’t
think it’s safe.”
Abilene officials say they may someday reconsider using treated
wastewater for nonconsumption uses to free up more drinking water.
Solutions
What can Abilene do to ensure its water supply is wisely used,
especially during the searing summer season?
Hargesheimer, the water department chief, believes a rate increase
would quickly convince citizens to curtail their usage.
Abilene last raised rates during the ’84 drought. Under
the revised rate structure, the fee per 1,000 gallons rose as
the consumer used more water. Water usage subsequently dropped
nearly 900 million gallons from 1983 to 1985.
The city whittled its rates in 1988, slightly lowering the
costs of water consumed above 2,000, 50,000 and 100,000 gallons
per month.
“Water’s too cheap,” Hargesheimer contends.
“I keep telling them that. We’ve been able to sell it
cheap because we have a good supply in place. The next rate adjustment
is really going to grab everybody.”
McDaniel doesn’t buy the argument.
He believes a rate hike would cause a temporary plunge in demand,
but consumers would rapidly adjust to higher prices, much as they
did when gas prices soared.
Instead, he favors a rededication to the voluntary conservation
measures that were also launched in 1984.
“We got into good habits, but everyone got more lax —
including me,” Simpson said. “We’re about to have
to get smart again.”
City Hall’s “Water Smart” program pushed citizens
to conserve water indoors and out.
The educational drive urged Abilenians to use low-flow shower
heads and faucets, to wash only full loads of clothes and dishes,
and to take showers instead of baths, for instance.
The bigger challenge was convincing homeowners not to waste
water outside.
Though the program stressed that “water down the gutter
is money down the drain,” Hargesheimer said, “You don’t
have to have it running down the curb to waste water.”
He and others contend most of the wasted water is needlessly
sprinkled on lawns that are plenty moist. Water officials contend
1 inch of water once a week is plenty for a patch of grass, and
even less water is needed when temperatures are mild as they are
now.
Grass becomes more dependent on moisture when it’s watered
too much too early, said Simpson, Water Smart’s chief spokeswoman.
“We don’t want anyone to lose their landscape investment,”
she said. “We want the city to be beautiful. But we don’t
have the water to waste dumping on landscapes. People are in the
habit of that, and we just need to break them.”
Although water use in 1998 was nearly split — 49.5 percent
to 51.5 percent — between indoor and outdoor use, the latter
spikes considerably in the summertime. Last summer’s average
daily use was 36.5 million gallons; the daily average for the
year was 25.9 million gallons.
Abilene used a record 9.5 billion gallons of water last year
— 1.7 billion gallons more than in 1997. Per capita use in
1998 was 205.5 gallons per day, a jump of 37.54 gallons.
And Abilene logged 138 days of using at least 30 million gallons
in 1998. The same figure was recorded over the three previous
years combined.
“We used too much water for our population,” Hargesheimer
charged.
Of the water used, 49.58 percent was for residential uses,
26.38 percent for commercial, 15.44 percent for industrial and
8.59 percent was sold to the 11 entities that contract to buy
city water.
City officials said that despite the drought, they will not
leave the tiny towns and water supply corporations high and dry.
Along with wanting to be good neighbors, state law requires the
city must share water collected within the Phantom watershed.
“It’s been a dry year. Otherwise, there would be
no concern,” Hargesheimer said of the water contracts. “They’re
not big users, and in the long run, it helps the ratepayers of
Abilene.”
City officials estimate that conservation efforts cut water
usage 10-15 percent in 1984. But Abilenians have since seemed
to lose their water smarts. Water use has ballooned 31.1 percent
since 1985 while the population has grown a meager 4.7 percent.
Water officials believe an aggressive re-education this spring
and summer should yield similar results as 1984.
“The community kicked in and did what it needed to do,”
Simpson said. “We feel if they have the information, they’ll
do it again.
“The ordinance will help, too, if we have to kick it in.”
Unless it rains, Simpson believes the odds of activating the
city’s Drought Contingency Plan, or water rationing, is “101
percent.”
City officials estimate mandatory rationing could slice usage
by up to 30 percent.
“We’ll probably have to curtail outside watering
some way somehow,” Hargesheimer said. “If people can’t
voluntarily back off, we’ll probably have some kind of mandatory
conditions to do that.”
The Drought Contingency Plan, another measure adopted 15 summers
ago, has three stages. Along with some of the prohibitions, they
are:
-- A water alert, during which outside watering is allowed
only during the early morning and late night hours. Also, hand-held
hoses must be equipped with shut-off nozzles when washing cars
and restaurants will serve water only when requested by a customer.
-- A water emergency, when watering of lawns is prohibited.
Vehicles can be washed only at a commercial car wash, the operation
of ornamental fountains is prohibited and businesses must reduce
their monthly consumption by 10 percent.
-- A water crisis, when both outdoor irrigation and car washing
are prohibited and businesses must reduce their monthly consumption
by 20 percent.
Each residential violation of a water emergency or crisis is
punishable by a $50 fine. Commercial misuses can cost $75 apiece.
Water worries
The real dangers of continued drought and water waste probably
wouldn’t come until the summer of 2000, the city manager
said.
The city maintains enough water in Fort Phantom Hill Lake to
meet daily demands this summer above 31 million gallons —
the Hubbard pipelines’ capacity. If Phantom is drained down
to the minimum level WTU needs and Abilene again receives only
half its average rainfall this year, there’ll be no reserve
next year.
The city would then have no choice but to use less than 31
million gallons of water per day.
A burst pipeline or a cratered pump could leave the city “sucking
wind,” McDaniel said. In what he called the “extremely
worst-case scenario,” a lack of water could threaten the
city’s health and safety.
But there is good news.
City Hall is convinced the 31 million gallons per day is about
twice what’s needed to meet the city’s basic needs.
And history indicates the area’s harshest droughts break
after about two years. Hargesheimer believes 10 inches of rain
over a couple of days would refill Phantom.
“We’re coming up fast on the worst two years in history
with runoff,” McDaniel said. “History says it’s
got to rain. But lord-a-mercy — when it’s 85 degrees
in February, it’s not helping.
“We should be able to work through this even if it is
the worst drought on record,” he assured. “But everyone
in town can’t use 100,000 gallons per month.”
Anthony Wilson can be reached at 676-6734 or wilsona@abinews.com.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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