In West Texas town, worst drought in 116 years leaves reservoir 99 percent dry – Local water wells contaminated by abandoned oil wells
By ALLAN TURNER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
15 August 2011 ROBERT LEE — […] With Texas gripped in a seemingly intractable drought that state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has declared the worst single-year dry spell in 116 years, Robert Lee, population 1,106, has emerged as an alarming worst-case example of what scant rainfall and triple-digit temperatures can do. Since January, Robert Lee — named for the iconic Army officer who pursued Indians through the region before the Civil War – has received only about 3 inches of rain, about a fourth of its midyear average. Daily temperatures routinely approach 110 degrees in the shade. The E.V. Spence Reservoir on the nearby Colorado River – Robert Lee’s source of drinking water – is more than 99 percent empty. Without a miraculous meteorological turnaround, this town 30 miles north of San Angelo could be bone dry by early next year. The drought has collapsed lake-based tourism – Robert Lee once called itself “The Playground of West Texas” – led longtime ranchers to sell their livestock and prompted town-dwellers to consider moving elsewhere. The city has implemented “Stage Three” drought measures, banning outdoor watering and requiring each household to reduce water use by 30 percent. Twice this year, local residents gathered on the courthouse’s brittle lawn to pray for rain. Last week, close to 300 townsfolk jammed the high school auditorium to hear engineers and state and local officials outline a last-ditch plan to save their community: construct a 12-mile, 10-inch pipeline to the neighboring, water-rich town of Bronte. Financed through government loans and grants, one of which would require locals to help do the work, the $1 million-plus pipeline would bring the parched county seat up to 200,000 gallons daily. Once begun, the restive audience was assured, the project could be completed in 60 days. With the pipeline in place, Mayor John Jacobs said, efforts to drill municipal water wells – so far a hit-or-miss proposition – would be intensified. An irony of West Texas’ arid topography is that only a few miles can mean the difference between water wealth and poverty. Bronte successfully taps a bounty of sweet water from its wells, while Robert Lee thus far finds little water or water tainted by improperly capped abandoned oil wells. […] Cattle still on the range have died from eating drought-stressed Johnson grass, which produces hydrocyanic acid. The number of young white-tailed deer – Coke County enjoys a vibrant autumn hunting business – seemingly has declined. […] Robert Lee’s current trials, City Secretary Kay Torres promised, will pass. “We will overcome this,” she said. “Our lawns will be green again.” […]
"We will overcome this," she said. "Our lawns will be green again."
Wishful thinking I'm afraid. This is not an "unusual event", which is what she is implying. The implication that things will improve is based upon outdated and uneducated response to what is now the new normal.
Definitely time to move. 200,000 gallons a day will only supply 400 people — and for how long?
Along with "prayers" that keep going unanswered, these people need to wake up to reality and their new normal.