Bay City Tribune

AUSTIN - The board of directors of the Lower Colorado River Authority on Wednesday approved a less-harsh-than-earlier-advertised plan to deal with low water levels in the Highland Lakes, a plan that likely will include cutting off water for rice farmers and irrigation customers for the first time in 2010.

However, the river authority stopped short of an across-the-board suspension of new contracts for long-term "firm" water contracts - ones required by municipalities and new residential developments for drinking water - instead deciding that the board would decide on a case-by-case basis whether to approve any of these new contracts.

This change was an overnight twist in the proposal voted on by the board members, who on Tuesday met as the authority's water committee and discussed the staff proposal to suspend the issuing any firm water contracts until the levels of the Highland Lakes return to more normal levels - 1.4 million acre-feet; currently the lakes are just above 1 million acre-feet.

The lakes are lower than normal, but about 20 percent higher than just two months ago, before recent rains partially replenished the reservoirs.

Instead, board members would reserve the right to approve new water contracts, if they decide there is enough stored water available in the Highland Lakes.

Under current LCRA rules, staff members can approve water contracts for 500 acre-feet of water a year; now all those contracts need board approval.

Specifically, the board approved a resolution that requires LCRA take several actions to more closely manage the supply of water in the Highland Lakes.

In addition to requiring board approval for all new contracts, these include:

Entering into traditional one-year "interruptible" contracts with rice farmers only for water for a first crop of rice, not the second crop that farmers usually plant in late summer. Rice farming advocate Haskell Simon of Matagorda County told committee members on Tuesday that this change would result in a crop loss of about $9 million in the three lower Colorado River basin counties, Matagorda, Colorado and Wharton. But he said the loss was acceptable as "our contribution to sharing the suffering."

Allowing municipalities to lift mandatory water conservation measures that LCRA asked water customers to implement during the dog days of summer, when the region suffered soaring temperatures and dry weather.

Several LCRA board members contacted after the meeting said the change in direction was made on Tuesday, when members met in executive session after a meeting of the board water committee.

Board members said they didn't want to take the more drastic step the staff was recommending.

"We feel we can give that more time. We don't need to do that right now," Steve K. Balas, board member from Colorado County, said about the decision to step back from an outright suspension of new water contracts.

Concerning the potential cutback in water for irrigation customers, Balas said it was a necessary response until water levels improve.

Despite recent rains that have lifted lake levels, LCRA said a water "deficit" of 267,000 acre-feet that the Highland Lakes have suffered during the past two years is worse than the drought of record from 1947 to 1957 upon which it bases its water planning.

LCRA didn't rule out supplying water so farmers could grow a second rice crop, but it said that would only happen "should conditions improve."

"We all realize water is still a little and we need to give up something," said Balas.