Water cut off to downstream rice farmers

March 04, 2013, 6:50 pm by James Walker

Highland Lakes cities, residents and business owners apprehensive about what another possible parched summer might bring now know that most of the water in the lakes Buchanan and Travis reservoirs, whatever the amount, won’t be sent downstream for rice farmers to use in flooding their fields to kill weeds.

When the clock hit 11:59 p.m. March 1 with just under 823,000 acre feet of water in the two reservoir lakes, it assured that water from the lakes will be cut off for most of the farmers for the second year in a row.

The fact that there was less than 850,000 acre feet in the two lakes at the March 1 deadline was the trigger point in an emergency drought relief order requested by the Lower Colorado River Authority and approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Feb. 13.

For the full story, see Tuesday's Highlander.

Reader Comments

Is that really a good thing to do? Where will we get our rice now? From China? Aw, GeezUs!
March 07, 2013, 3:00pm by Dwayne

Most of the rice production from those counties goes overseas, including to Asia. Almost NONE -- ZERO -- goes to the U.S. market. It is only the fourth largest agricultural crop from those counties. It is mainly produced by very large agribusinesses, not small farmers. YOU are paying those intereststo grow it in Texas. How? YOU are paying higher water rates in order to support rates for ricer farmers than are more than THIRTY times lower than what is being paid in the Highland Lakes. In addition, your federal TAX MONEY goes to subsidize production of the crop -- several BILLION over the past few years!
March 09, 2013, 10:44am by Luke