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Water Management Plan Revision Favors Lakes

The LCRA was ordered to produce a Water Management Plan (WMP) as a condition of receiving its adjudicated water right in 1988. The WMP serves as a handbook, for both internal and external use, which describes how the available water in the Colorado basin is to be allocated among the various water users in the basin.

The WMP has been revised three times since its origin in 1989, and the latest revision was approved by the LCRA board of directors at their regular meeting in February. In the case of each revision, an advisory committee made up of representatives of the lake interests, agriculture, water contract holders and the environment, and led by LCRA staff, negotiated the terms of the new plan. The latest revision must be approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

The latest revision to the WMP includes several changes that are important benefits to the lakes. These include:

1. In the past, one trigger point of stored water volume was used at the November board meeting each year to determine the availability of interruptible water for agricultural irrigation for the whole season. Now, there will be two trigger points to determine how much irrigation water will be available - one on January 1 for the first crop and a second, on June 1, to govern water availability for a second crop. Read on.