The War for the Colorado
From the West Texas Caprock to Matagorda Bay, a drought-prone river triggers animosities and provokes battles over its life-sustaining waters. Downstream and upstream interests loathe each other, farmers fear losing out to cities, and everyone is united against raiders from faraway San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
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“I knew that it was salty,” said Gibson. “The water had never been that clear before. It was a pretty blue, and there was lots more of it. But I didn’t know what it would do.” That year Gibson lost his entire peanut crop and most of his pecans. It was another five or six years before he could make the land productive again—and then only by growing coastal bermuda grass, which is more salt-tolerant. “The only way you can get rid of salt,” said Gibson, “is to wait for it to leach through the land.”
ON FEBRUARY 19 A STORM BARRELED into Central Texas that was unlike any the Lower Colorado River Authority had seen in some time. Everyone at the LCRA knew that if the storm passed over the Hill Country, the area’s peculiar geology would direct nearly all the rain straight into the authority’s six man-made lakes. Those mammoth lakes make the LCRA the undisputed heavyweight on the Colorado; in wet years they hold an epic, seemingly endless supply. The lakes are the secret behind Austin’s prosperity—among those drawn by their steady assurance are the area’s microchip manufacturers, which drink up large quantities of water in their factories. But only a gargantuan flood fills the lakes up, and the area can go for months or years on end without seeing a storm of any consequence. The fickleness of the weather makes the LCRA guard its lakes jealously, because it never knows when the water is going to leave again. This fervent devotion is often interpreted as tyrannical control by the rest of the Colorado River basin, which loves and hates the almighty LCRA in equal measure.
The storm that came in February was preceded by the worst drought in recent decades. For three long years, there had been no rain, or not enough rain, or rain in all the wrong places. At a certain point, things had gotten so bad that LCRA officials feared they might have to refuse water to rice farmers during the coming irrigation season. But then the February storm headed directly for the Hill Country. It started raining that evening, it rained all night, and it was still raining the next morning. The area’s granite and limestone shoulders shrugged off almost all the water, hurriedly funneling it into the streams and creeks that feed the Colorado. Around three in the morning on February 20, Wes Birdwell, the hydrologist in charge of the LCRA’s lake system, woke to the sound of his beeper going off—flash floods were developing on the Colorado’s main tributaries. Before the storm passed, the raging Llano, probably the most flood-prone river in the Colorado watershed, would crest at 28 feet, while the San Saba would rise high enough to cover Texas Highway 16. Birdwell ordered floodgates opened, letting the precious water so carefully hoarded in the dry years thunder out.
Austin sits right below the Hill Country’s profligate runoff, a fact that explains how an organization as strange and as unique as the LCRA came to exist in the first place. The city used to feel the brunt of every storm that visited the Hill Country; twice it tried blocking the Colorado, and twice the river smashed its dams to pieces. Finally in 1927 a utility company started to build a dam across the Colorado, hoping to use the river to generate hydroelectric power, only to run out of money before the dam was completed. A group of political dealmakers led by State Senator Alvin Wirtz, a local lawyer, suggested that the federal government bail out the utility, arguing that the dam was a flood-control device, but federal officials balked at providing tax dollars for a private construction project. That was when Wirtz came up with the idea of creating a quasi-public entity to finish the job. The Lower Colorado River Authority, born in 1934, was officially charged with stopping floods, providing a reliable supply of water, and (so that it could become self-sufficient) generating electricity. Other utilities had refused to run power lines across the sparsely populated Hill Country, but the LCRA would soon bring the first electric lights to the area.
The LCRA built six dams across the Colorado (all with federal funds) over the next decade, turning valleys carved by the river into the Highland Lakes. The first in the chain is immense Lake Buchanan, then little Inks, then skinny LBJ, medium-sized Marble Falls, giant, spidery Travis, and finally Lake Austin. The six-lake system functions like a series of pillows, each further absorbing the blow of any flood. Buchanan and Travis, the two largest reservoirs, also serve as giant vaults, storing water that is sold to the LCRA’s customers. Travis was designed to handle particularly severe flooding as well: Although the lake is technically full at 681 feet above sea level, it can rise as high as 715 feet in an emergency. Even when all six lakes are brimming, the cushion Travis provides is generous enough to accept the most punishing storm LCRA officials imagine ever confronting. “Forty inches in three days,” said Birdwell. “Noah’s flood.”
But lakes were not all the LCRA built. The organization became the behemoth it is today partly at the prodding of Lyndon Johnson; as a young congressman, Johnson had helped obtain federal financing for the dam that formed Lake Travis, and he later intervened at a crucial moment in the LCRA’s history. In 1946 its officials were flustered to learn that they had made a profit for the first time—by law they were prohibited from earning money. They began discussing how to refund the embarrassing surplus. “The Lower Colorado River Valley is a long way from the Garden of Eden,” wrote Johnson in a lengthy admonishment. “But you gentlemen have it in your power to bring us a lot closer.” Johnson recommended spending the money on heavy farm equipment for a soil-conservation program. The birth of the conservation effort marked the moment when the LCRA shed its identity as an ordinary river authority and started to become something more like the emperor of the Colorado. Initially the authority generated power only by hydroelectric generation, but when demand outstripped what it could produce, the LCRA also started burning gas and coal. Last year the river authority earned $407 million from the sale of power and $12 million from water. And the LCRA continues to expand: Recently it has bought up wastewater systems, built low-income housing, started exploring for gas and oil, and sold natural gas on a wholesale basis. The LCRA’s hard-to-peg nature vexes competitors in the power business, who resent the authority’s exemption from taxes, and just last month a legislative committee suggested that the LCRA be forced to sell some of its assets.
Whatever else critics say, the LCRA does a fantastic job of harvesting floodwaters. Over the years that task has gotten more complicated, as real estate developers have swathed the Highland Lakes with summer homes, retirement communities, and boat docks. After thirty years elapsed without a truly roaring flood, some myopic builders even put houses in the floodplain of Lake Travis, which were swamped on Christmas Day in 1991 and again last February. Within several days of that storm’s passage, all six of the LCRA’s lakes were full for the first time in four years. But despite this seeming abundance, the question of a future water shortage plagues even the LCRA. Almost three times as many people live in Central Texas today as when the river authority was created. If the area’s population continues to multiply, then sometime in the next few decades, the LCRA will have to deny water to agricultural customers to satisfy the needs of cities. The LCRA sells both “firm water,” which is available even during droughts, and “interruptible water,” which may not be. Firm water costs $105 an acre-foot—too expensive for farmers but still just one third of what the CRMWD charges—and it is sold to cities and industries. Interruptible water is far cheaper at $4.50 an acre-foot but is sold only to agriculture. About half the rice farmers in Wharton and Matagorda counties buy water from the LCRA, and they all rely on the interruptible supply. But at some point there will be no interruptible water, because the LCRA will need every bit of rain the Hill Country provides to guarantee water to the growing pool of people willing to pay for firm water.
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