Monday, July 10, 2000
Hubbard Creek Reservoir was
area’s answer to earlier drought
By Jerry Daniel Reed
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Hubbard Creek Reservoir proved a model water
supply for Abilene and three of its neighbors during the droughty
1940s and ’50s.
A virtual model, to be sure, since the Stephens
County lake wasn’t completed until the 1960s.
At the direction of the West Central Texas
Municipal Water District, a computer model of the lake simulated
the droughts of the ’40s and ’50s.
It proved that even with a larger population,
record consumption and a record drought, the lake still could
have pulled its four member-cities through those dry times.
“Hubbard Creek Reservoir would have
survived, though with some pretty scary moments,’’ said
David Bell, general manager of the water district since 1986.
Hubbard Creek Reservoir and the water district
that owns it have proved an invaluable backup water source for
Abilene, Albany and Breckenridge, and a primary reservoir for
Anson.
The West Central Texas Municipal Water District
is a creation of the drought of the ’50s, which caused leaders
in the four future member- cities to start worrying where their
next gallon would come from.
In the depths of that drought, the Texas
Legislature in 1955 authorized the water district’s creation,
subject to voter approval in the proposed member cities.
The vote was overwhelming everywhere.
In Anson, only a single negative vote was
counted.
The skies opened again in 1957 to end this
area’s most severe drought ever, so the new water district
wasn’t required to combat that drought.
Hubbard’s $3.5 million construction
cost was financed by 30-year bonds that were retired in 1992.
It took a dozen years to finish the entire
Hubbard water supply system, a project that included rerouting
stretches of highway, relocating graves and building 67 miles
of pipeline, not to mention dam construction.
Fortunately, those were generally wet years
in these parts.
Though it missed out on dealing with the
drought that spawned it, the water district has dealt with its
share of droughts since then.
And given the natural long-term aridity
of its region, it doubtless will be challenged by at least a few
more in the years ahead.
In what has become a bit of West Central
Texas Municipal Water District lore, a construction crew feverishly
finished the last mile of Breckenridge’s pipeline to Hubbard
in a single day after that city almost pumped its own Lake Daniel
dry in 1971.
Albany’s time of need came on Aug.
3-4, 1978, when a 30-inch cloudburst hit.
The resulting flood drowned six people and
destroyed the city’s water supply system from Lake McCarty.
For more than a year afterward, Hubbard
supplied the Shackelford County seat all of its water.
Water quality concerns and mechanical problems
prompted Anson to abandon North Lake as its primary water source
more than three decades ago in favor of relying on Hubbard.
But with its lion’s share of the population
and thus water consumption, Abilene has long been the water district’s
major member, customer and client for special projects.
The water district helped Abilene secure
a share of what became the O.H. Ivie Reservoir, a second pipeline
to Hubbard to enable the city to draw more water in times of serious
drought, and a greater share of the lake’s water on a temporary
basis.
The city’s present temporary allotment
of 23 million gallons a day, on a year-round average, will expire
on Dec. 31, 2002.
Two months ago, the 12-member water district
board invoked Stage 1 of its drought contingency plan because
Hubbard’s water level had dipped to 59 percent of capacity.
By its action, the board asked member cities
to adopt meaningful conservation measures.
All have at least launched voluntary conservation
and public education efforts.
The district also has played a key support
role in the process of creating a weather modification project
to try to enhance rainfall on and around its watershed starting
next year.
Contact staff writer Jerry Reed at 676-6769
or reedj@abinews.com.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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