Not so Waste(ed) Water

July 21, 2015August 2, 2015 / Rowdy / 2 Comments

[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.*

Continue reading →

The Cereal King and the Drought Battle on the Llano Estacado.

July 19, 2015July 20, 2015 / Rowdy / Leave a comment

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 →

Crepuscular

July 15, 2015July 14, 2015 / Rowdy / Leave a comment

Today’s word: Crepuscular

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.

Your water is in detention (ponds)

July 13, 2015July 13, 2015 / Rowdy / 3 Comments

[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.

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Grab a paddle

July 8, 2015July 9, 2015 / Rowdy / Leave a comment

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.

Five years of drought animated

May 29, 2015May 29, 2015 / Rowdy / Leave a comment

This map is just colors, but for some people it represents five years of sweat and tears. During this time fortunes were lost, herds and crops were lost, family ranches were lost. It is estimated that over 25 % of all the trees in Texas died during this drought. See what five years of drought looks like in 15 seconds.

(This is a fairly large image, so it may take a moment to fully load.)

Five years of drought animated

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Goldilocks wouldn’t like Texas

May 28, 2015May 28, 2015 / Rowdy / 1 Comment

What a difference a week made for some places in Texas! Parts of Texas experienced massive flooding which resulted in deaths, bridges lost, and at least one dam failure. Many reservoirs experienced dramatic changes in water level, with some becoming full nearly overnight. Possum Kingdom is full and was releasing water into the Brazos, and evacuations are occurring downstream. For the first time since June 2010, the USDA Drought Monitor does not show any severe drought in Texas (and it should be noted that time in 2010 without severe drought lasted only six months.) We have been free of severe drought only 26 months spread out over the last 11 years, and completely free of drought only three months during that same period.

Despite all of this rain and despite the drought relief, for many Texans, it is the same story as last week: The ground is damp, but the lakes are dry. Here is an updated map comparing the new drought index with current lake levels:

The largest red circles represent lakes that are below 25% of capacity, the medium dots are lakes that are between 25 and 50% full, and the smallest dots are lakes which are between 40 and 75%.

A comparison between the USDA Drought Index and Texas Lake Levels.

As you can see, while those along the Brazos are wet, people along the upper reaches of the Colorado River are still dry, even if the drought index has shrunken. With another month of spring left, hopefully things will continue to change for those of us in the dry areas; however, in this area the el niño effect often wanes during the summer before returning during winter. In other words, we may have a wet summer in the western portion of the state, or we may not.

Here is a comparison of May rainfall totals for a few select stations across the drought area. For ease of data collection these are mostly airport locations, so the totals may vary slightly from nearby cities. Notice that other than a few large outliers (Austin at nearly 17 inches of rain for example) that some of the dry areas aren’t that far behind some of the wetter areas. This goes back to my previous post about watersheds: it takes rain in a certain area to influence lake levels.

Rainfall totals so far this May (inches).

Certainly, we are better off today than we were this time last year, but now is not the time to abandon water conservation. In terms of water it seems the state has very few places that Goldilocks would consider just right.

Next week I begin a three part series on how one city in Texas obtains its drinking water. If you enjoyed this post, please surf over to the Instante Mense facebook page and like it.

What does it take to fill up a lake?

May 24, 2015July 13, 2015 / Rowdy / 6 Comments

UPDATE: After reading this post to find out why it seems the lake rises so slowly, check out this post where I discuss the recent rain.

Most of Texas has been in exceptional and extreme drought for the past five years. Now due to el niño, we are finishing spring with cool, wet weather. For the first time in what seems like forever much of Texas is officially drought-free. In fact, some areas are experiencing severe flooding; however, that is not the complete story. What I would like to do today is discuss the flooding and drought issues here in Texas on a watershed level.

Despite these floods and despite the fact that overall Texas reservoirs are 78% full, many lakes are at less than 50% of capacity. People living in the Rolling Plains and Edwards Plateau ecoregions of Texas are still experiencing drought conditions. I built this map below to give an idea of the land area in Texas suffering from drought conditions and to show the number of lakes that are less than half full.

In the areas still in drought above live approximately 3.5 million people and all of the lakes shown are water sources for these people. There are other water sources, some lakes which have received some water, and other areas depend upon aquifers (a nonrenewable source), but these empty lakes remain important.

What does it take to fill up a lake?

When it rains, the water does several things. On pervious surfaces, such as lawns and fields, it soaks into the ground to provide soil moisture needed for plants. If the rate of precipitation is greater than what can be absorbed, or if the rain lands on hard surfaces, it begins to run off. Take a parking lot for example: rain runs off of the parking lot into a drainage ditch (or storm sewer), the ditch runs into a gully, that gully runs into a creek, that creek runs into a river, and that river may run into a lake before it ends at the ocean. Cities will then pump water from the lake, treat it, and then citizens will use that water in their houses.

Every lake has a certain area from which it will collect water. This area is called a watershed. Since most of my readers are from the Abilene area, I will use Lake Fort Phantom as an example. This lake is currently at 37% capacity. The watershed of Fort Phantom is approximately 500 square miles. If this entire area were to receive a 1 inch rain and if it were all run into the lake, it would receive 8.66 BILLION gallons of water! That is enough water to last 26,600 families for a year. This also happens to be roughly the amount of water in Lake Fort Phantom right now, and there are 10 times as many people depending upon that water.

Using the example above it would take 2.6 inches of rain over the entire watershed to completely fill up Lake Fort Phantom. Recently much of the Big Country has received lots of rain; the nearby town of Merkel has received 11 inches of rain in the last six weeks, but as I mentioned above, Lake Fort Phantom is only 37% full.

So, where did the water go?

Examine this map I made of the Fort Phantom watershed:

The rain has to fall into the red shaded area in order to reach the lake. While the lake has 500 square miles to draw from, in reality that is not a lot of area. Merkel may have received a lot of rain, but that water will end up in the Brazos river and not Lake Fort Phantom. Another issue is that not all the rain that falls in the watershed actually ends up in the lake. As I mentioned before, some water is absorbed, but a sustainable amount of water is also diverted into ponds, ephemeral wetlands, rainwater collection catchments and flood control basins. Once it is in these areas the water is used by many people and animals, and these areas should not be considered a waste of water.

The drought may be over for most of Texas, and in the coming weeks the drought may be over for us on the Rolling Plains, but please keep in mind that it takes rain falling in exact areas to refill our water supplies. Though it may seem like we are receiving a lot (and in some areas too much) water, we should not back away from water conservation efforts. We may have a cool wet summer, but then again, we may not.

It is a long time until September.

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Change

May 19, 2015March 13, 2022 / Rowdy / Leave a comment

We awoke with frost on our backpacks. As we brought the fire back to life our hands shook from the cold. We were both either 11 or 12 and I think it was our first winter camping trip without adults. There was not a budget for store bought kit back then. Our supplies consisted of school backpacks, ragged blankets, and the odd bit of army surplus gear. Next to the fire sat a 10 inch cast iron skillet I had been foolish enough to carry. The night before I spent nearly an entire box of matches getting the fire going. Our last match encouraged me to get it right. We spread out one blanket to lie on and used a couple others for cover. During the night we huddled under the same blankets trying to stay warm while listening to the wind and coyotes and the coals. I remember watching the stars disappearing as the front rolled in.

That morning the clouds were racing overhead. It made me dizzy to look at them for very long. We had nearly packed up camp when we first heard the noise.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o

Neither of us knew what it could be. kar-r-r-r- o-o-o and trumpeting and rattling and almost clinking. We both moved to the west, trying to find the source of the sound. Through a barbed wire fence, over the railroad tracks and through a few more fences we went.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o

It seemed the faster we moved the faster the sound moved before us. It was always just beyond the next line of trees or over the next rise. After a while the sound was all around us.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o

I couldn’t see any tracks. The clouds still raced overhead and we were both a little uneasy. At the Mountains of Madness had kept me up a few weeks before and the story was fresh on my mind and on my arms as goosebumps.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o

Suddenly there was a break in the clouds and wherever there was a hole we could see the sky was filled with sandhill cranes. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of cranes going south.

kar-r-r-r- o-o-o.

I remember laughing at the wonder of it all. We walked back to camp both feeling a bit more knowledgeable than before; our uneasiness and ignorance had been forgotten in our victory of discovery. I’ve seen a lot of migrating cranes and geese since, but I’m not sure I have ever seen as many or been as filled with wonder as that cold morning. It was just another experience that bonded us as friends, made us brothers.

I sometimes wonder if he still remembers that morning.