Despite the cyclical occurrence of droughts in the arid North Texas region, a great deal of misunderstanding still surrounds the drought and the effect it has on area residents. Wichita Falls officially entered a stage 4 drought disaster on Nov. 16 and city officials are already drafting restrictions for a stage 5 as conditions continue to worsen.
The “Pray for Rain” signs seen decorating lawns throughout the city seem to indicate that once it rains, the drought will end. However, according to Rebecca Dodge, associate professor of geology, the rain simply won’t help until the city sees a significant amount of precipitation for an extended period of time.
“It’s going to take a long time to make up for all of the losses over the past several years because it’s cumulative,” Dodge said.
Dodge said a drought causes the underground water levels, known as aquifers, to drop. This lowers the water table, leading to dried-up and unappealing lakes.
“We’re in a situation now where so many of our drinking water reservoirs–the water table–has dropped,” Dodge said. “The lake levels are really low, and until we can bring up the water table regionally, those lakes won’t refill. Water can pour into the lakes as runoff and rainfall, but it will sink down until it spreads out and gets the water table up.”
Jonathan Price, assistant professor of geology, explained that those underground sources of water have been dry for so long that any rainfall just gets absorbed into the ground before it can even begin to fill the lakes.
“It looks like solid material but you’ve got this big open sponge, if you will, that just needs to be filled with water before you can start releasing it back into the system so it’ll end up in the reservoir,” Price said.
Dodge said the sponge effect described by Price is precisely what has kept the lakes so barren. Wichita Falls needs to play catch up to even begin to see stabilization in the lake levels.
“We need lots and lots of rain to make up for everything that we’ve lost,” Dodge said, “and all this rain that we’ve had recently is going to help, but we’re still at very low lake levels because we’re just playing catch up now trying to replenish the lake levels underground.”
Wichita Falls endured 100 days of 100-degree weather in 2011, breaking the record for most 100-degree days in a year. According to Price, those conditions only worsened the now three year drought.
“When you have 100-degree days, day after day, you’ve removed a lot of the water out of the soil surfaces,” Price said. “So it takes a while to actually see any response from that at all. In fact, I think the last rainfall didn’t really gain us anything in the reservoirs.”
Water table
Another problem according to Price is that the rain must fall in the right area to benefit the city.
“If it rains here in Wichita Falls but it doesn’t rain to the west and southwest of us, particularly the southwest of us, it doesn’t do us any good,” Price said. “Any water that falls in Wichita Falls is going to end up draining down into the Red River and that helps out Lake Texoma, but it doesn’t do a darn thing for us.”
Due to these issues, conservation has become a hot topic in the region, and for good reason according to Price.
“In a semi-arid region like this, I think water has to be something we should all have on our mind at some point,” Price said. “It never hurts to look at water and think in terms of saving it, and certainly students have an opportunity to engage in that.”
Price said the drought could even have the positive effect of making citizens more aware of their water use.
“I hate to say it, but a lot of stressors like this actually end up with very positive outcomes because people are more aware of what their limitations are and we’re able to plan for it in the future,” Price said.
Dodge said there will always be another drought because of our climate, meaning that learning from our current predicament will make it easier to cope with the next inevitable drought.
“It’s important to understand that what’s happening now is going to happen again,” Dodge said. “We can be better prepared next time if we understand how to conserve … our resources better.”
One such aspect citizens may not be aware of until faced with this adversity is that city officials must prioritize water allocations to provide for the most important services such as fire fighting.
“That’s why water conservation right now is so important,” Dodge said. “When the city looks at water resources, they have to be able to fill the water towers around town to a certain level to ensure that the fire department has pressure at the fire hydrants. That’s one of their cutoffs.”
Dodge said if the water levels in the tower drop closer to that cutoff, city officials will enact tougher restrictions.
“So that’s what has caused the restrictions,” Dodge said. “Not just that the lake levels have gotten low, but that they can’t keep the water towers as full as they need to if they keep letting people use as much water as they want.”
Wells
Citizens and businesses alike have started using water wells to alleviate some of the demand on municipal water, but using such wells may come at a hefty environmental price.
“What you do when you pump an underground water source is you lower the water table as a function of using the pump,” Price said. “You get a large enough pump and you can lower your neighbor’s water table too, which is not cool but certainly legal.”
According to Price, Texas law permits citizens to tap into underground water sources as long as it’s under their property and it’s for a beneficial use.
“If you put a well on your property you’re welcome to use that water as long as you can demonstrate that you’re using it for something useful,” Price said. “I don’t know exactly where the boundaries are on that. Lawyers define that kind of stuff, but I’ve seen some really ugly cases from Texas come out of this.”