[This is part of my continuing series on how Abilene, Texas obtains its water. The series starts here and continues here]
Reusing waste water isn’t a new thing. Several agencies have treated sewer water to use in various ways. For example, both El Paso and San Antonio inject their treated effluent water into the ground to recharge aquifers. In 2001 Abilene completed a pipeline from the sewer treatment plants north of Abilene to Lake Kirby in southern Abilene. This water is used for recreation at the lake and is also used for irrigation for local parks, golf courses, universities, and Dyess Air Force Base.
This past winter an additional pipeline to Fort Phantom Lake was completed, improved treatment facilities installed, and now treated sewer water flows directly into Fort Phantom Lake. As you may have learned in my earlier post, Fort Phantom is one of the main sources of drinking water for Abilene. It sounds gross to some, but in a dry area that is likely to only become more dry as both the populations and the effects of climate change increase, we need to utilize every drop of water as many times as possible.*
It is difficult for man to look beyond the scale of his own life. We might have a vague idea of what life was like for our parents before we were born, and we have an idea of how we would like life to be for our children, but for most of us that is as far as we usually think. A while back I was talking to a man who was born in Texas during the early 1950s, but spent much of his childhood out of state.
C.W. Post Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
He told me about how it used to always rain in Texas and how drought was a rare thing when he was a child. This is the despite the massive drought during the 1950s, a period of time author Elmer Kelton called “The Time it Never Rained.”
In truth, much of western Texas has probably known more dry years than wet years.
Truly, fighting drought is nothing new; however, the methods change. While we have new technology to aid our fight, those in times past were also attempting novel ways of breaking a drought. Let me introduce you to C.W. Post. Continue reading →
In simple terms, crepuscular animals are those that are active during the twilight hours around dawn and dusk.
Many animals thought of by the average person as nocturnal are actually crepuscular. For example, skunks while often active at night, are crepuscular.
It is common “wisdom” that a skunk seen out when it is not dark is likely rabid; however, like many other “common sense” things told to us as children, it is not the case. While certainly if you see a skunk during daylight that is also acting strange (stumbling for a example) there there might be concern, but there is no need to kill every skunk you see before dark.
[This is part of a series of posts exploring how a midsized Texas city gets its water. For the first post, click over to see what it takes to fill up a lake.]
In the broadest sense, Abilene has two sources of water: recycled and surface water. Surface water is the water that we draw from the three lakes (Fort Phantom Hill, Hubbard Creek, and O.H. Ivie) as well as the water we scalp from the Clear Fork of the Brazos river. We’ll look at scalping in another post.
How does the water get to these lakes?
Of course rain falls on the watershed of these lakes, but it then has to find its way to the lake. In the case of Fort Phantom Lake, it actually flows through Abilene. While driving around
town, the water (and trash) you see in the ditches and creeks is on its way to your tap.
Besides creeks and ditches, rain that falls downtown flows into the stormwater sewer system through the drains built into curbs. This water flows straight into the nearest creek to be transported to the lake and thus receives no treatment. This is why you should never dispose of anything but water into sewer drains; it is going straight to your drinking water!
The scenic route
Along the way, the water is diverted in various ways including ponds, detention ponds and riparian wetlands. The latter are the marshy areas often found along the edges of creeks and other water bodies. You might see reeds and cattails along the edges of these places. These wetlands (often ephemeral in this part of the country) provide important ecosystem services to use all. While I’ll let Bill Nye explain it better than I can, you should know that these areas help prevent erosion, fight pollution, provide valuable urban wildlife habitat, and help slow down water to prevent downstream flooding.
Unfortunately, Abilene has removed many of these wetlands in favor of straightening creeks. This is because it is easier to remove trash and treat for mosquitoes in wide straight ditches lined with short grass than in wetlands. It is also an attempt to reduce flooding. Abilene, like many other cities, use detention ponds to slow flood water, collect trash, slow pollution, and other services provided by wetlands. There are approximately 200 detentions ponds scattered through Abilene, though the Abilene Storm Water Department only inspects and maintains slightly under 50 of these ponds.
Detention pond in eastern Abilene before a rainstorm.
As I will mention in the following video, part of Abilene’s stormwater management plan is to allow water to flow down certain secondary streets, and these small holding areas are crucial to slowing the water down enough to prevent flooding.
Detention pond after a rainstorm
You might be surprised that there are so many of these ponds scattered across Abilene, since there are so few bodies of water. Many of these ponds are just a few feet deep and spend most of the year as open grassy areas. You may have seen children playing in a detention pond and didn’t realize it was a pond! These ponds provide a place for water to collect during heavy rains to prevent flooding and they slow the flood water down, allowing some trash and debris to fall out of the water before it gets to the lake.
And there is one source of your drinking water. Next week we’ll take a look at another source of water.
A while back I posted an explanation of where and how much it would need to rain in order to fill up Fort Phantom lake. Not accounting for absorption or detention in ponds and other low lying areas it would take a 2.6 inch rain on the entire watershed to fill up the lake, according to my previous calculations. Well, currently Cedar, Elm and Catclaw creeks are out of their banks in places. The following map shows a few rainfall totals for places in the Fort Phantom watershed
Without data for the western edge of the watershed, it is impossible for me to offer a good estimate of exactly how much water will flow to Fort Phantom lake; however, judging from how little Lake Abilene has risen, I think it is safe to say that portion of the watershed will not contribute as much water to Fort Phantom as the eastern half. As of today (July 7th) the lake is at 45.3%, but click on the link to see the current lake level. Get ready to see a change in the lake level in as the week goes on! And check back here later this week to read about why it can take so long between a rainfall event and a change in the lake level.
instante mense 