Title
Approving a resolution supporting the application from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) for an emergency order from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regarding water releases for agriculture in 2013.
Summary
The City of Pflugerville along with a number of other municipalities and municipal/governmental water suppliers are considered firm water customers of the LCRA. Firm water users include the cities of Pflugerville, Austin, Cedar Park, Burnet and Lakeway, through a municipal utility district. This group supported the emergency drought order that LCRA obtained from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) in late 2011 that allowed LCRA to deviate from the existing Water Management Plan. This deviation allowed the curtailment of water releases for interruptible customers downstream, thus helping to insure that adequate water supplies were available in Lakes Travis and Buchanan for firm water customers. Interrruptible customers are those using the water for agricultural use such as the rice farmers near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. An adjudication order issued in 1989 states "The supply of stored water pursuant to non-firm, interruptible commitments should be interrupted or curtailed to the extent necessary to allow LCRA to satisfy all existing and projected demands for stored water purusant to all firm uninterruptible commitments." The firm water customers are concerned that the current level of the lakes, 880,000 acre feet, is not that much higher than the 850,000 acre feet that was part of the reason for the emergency drought order last year. Without further action, LCRA would be using the existing Water Management Plan and releasing 183,000 acre feet of water to the interruptible customers downstream. Again, firm water customers are concerned about the ability of the Lakes to sustain a level that would insure firm water commitments, should that amount be released.
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