July 2, 2022
LCRA is implementing drought response Stage 1 under the LCRA Drought Contingency Plan for Firm Water Customers, and is hereby requesting that you and other firm water customers implement voluntary drought response measures consistent with your DCPs, with a targeted demand reduction goal of 5%.
Under LCRA’s DCP, drought response Stage 1 goes into effect when the combined storage of lakes Buchanan and Travis is below 1.4 million acre-feet and water to interruptible customers in the Lakeside, Gulf Coast and Pierce Ranch agricultural operations has been curtailed. The July 1 combined storage was 1.278 million acre-feet and under criteria in the Water Management Plan, LCRA has cut off interruptible stored water for the second growing season.
Conditions in the lower Colorado River basin remain extremely dry. Even with the cutoff of interruptible water for the second growing season, without more rain we expect lakes Buchanan and Travis to continue to fall throughout the summer due to customers’ water use and evaporation. Lakes Buchanan and Travis are water supply reservoirs designed to do exactly what they are doing now – capture water when it rains so we have a reliable water supply during drier times like these. For more information on lake conditions, visit the Highland Lakes Overview page on lcra.org.
Water saving tips and programs are available at WaterSmart.org.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 512-578-7701.
Sincerely,
Gabe Smith
Senior Account Manager