[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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