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Friday, October 20, 2000
Rainfall does little to replenish
lakes
By Loretta Fulton
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Downtown buildings and northside
homes caught more water than area lakes in Tuesday’s downpour.
Up to 7.5 inches of rain fell
on some parts of Abilene Tuesday, damaging numerous roofs and
necessitating repairs that may take weeks. Even so, it apparently
fell in the wrong areas to do much toward replenishing Big Country
lakes.
The water level at Lake Fort
Phantom Hill, Abilene’s primary water source, rose only
1.9 feet, leaving the lake 15.4 feet below the spillway, said
Linda Simpson, the city’s assistant director of water utilities.
That amounts to 1.2 billion gallons of water — equal to
the amount the city would consume or lose to evaporation in three
weeks, Simpson said.
However, unless directed by the
Abilene City Council, water officials don’t plan to pump
water from Phantom. Instead, they will continue to rely upon
the much larger Hubbard Creek Reservoir as the city’s sole
water source.
Although the rainfall was beneficial
to lawns and fields, Simpson said it didn’t fall in the
right place to help Phantom much. The heaviest showers were concentrated
over downtown and north Abilene. Rainfall to the south of Abilene
and in the Buffalo Gap area flows into Phantom.
“The problem was it didn’t
rain in a big enough area,” Simpson said.
She said about 30 percent of
the additional water in Phantom was pumped from the Clear Fork
of the Brazos.
Even though Phantom didn’t
catch much runoff, it fared a little better than Hubbard reservoir
near Breckenridge. David Bell, general manager of the West Central
Texas Municipal Water District that maintains Hubbard, said the
lake did not catch any significant runoff and remains at 16 feet
below the spillway.
O.H. Ivie Reservoir, which lies
in Runnels and Coleman counties, rose three-tenths of a foot,
said Chris Wingert, assistant general manager of the Colorado
River Municipal Water District. That amounts to about 5,000 acre-feet
or 1.6 billion gallons.
“It helps, but I wouldn’t
break out the champagne just yet,” Wingert said.
However, the ground is so saturated
that any additional rainfall will be more likely to flow into
lakes, Simpson noted. The National Weather Service forecasts
a chance of showers through Monday.
“We’re in a wonderful
position to collect some rainfall off the watershed,” Simpson
said.
Kirby and Lytle lakes in Abilene,
neither of which supplies drinking water, caught only a tad of
rain. Though enough fell into Kirby to create a puddle in the
recently evaporated lake, Simpson said it wasn’t enough
to measure with the city’s depth gauges.
Other area lakes also caught
little runoff:
Norman Smith, public works director in Clyde, said the creek
that flows into Lake Clyde still was not running after the heavy
rains. The lake did not benefit except for catching minimal rains
that fell directly into it, he said.
Rain in the area measured from
2.3 inches to 3 inches. Clyde has been buying water from Abilene
for several months because Lake Clyde is so low.
Baird Lake, like neighboring Clyde, caught no rain from its watershed
despite the 1.5 inches of rainfall measured in the area, said
City Secretary Nancy Turnbow. The lake is 18.5 feet below its
spillway.
Lake Winters, which is 12 feet below spillway, rose 2 inches
from the approximately 2 inches of rain in the area.
Rain in the Ballinger measured about 3 inches Tuesday, but the
moisture was not enough to measurably increase the contents of
Ballinger Lake.
Regional writer Ken Ellsworth
contributed to this story.
Contact staff writer Loretta
Fulton at 676-6778 or fultonl@abinews.com.
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