Water, Water… Anywhere?

 

 

IT SHOULD NOT COME AS A SHOCK to any Texas sportsman—or any Texan, period—that water is going to be a critical issue very soon… and already is in a large part of the state. While Texans in north and eastern regions slosh around in an abundance of both surface and groundwater (for now), a large swath of the state languishes under a dome of rising temperatures and unrelenting drought.
We track water levels in the state’s 120 major lakes in every issue (see our Freshwater Forecast Center on pages 51, 54, and 57). This reporting illustrates the dire conditions that affect a territory west and south of a jagged line running down from the Panhandle, east of Lubbock, north of San Antonio and between Corpus Christi and Victoria.
Most of the reservoirs below and west of this line are at no more than 40% capacity—many of them just 10-to-20% full—or lower.
The current hotspots for bass fishing in the state, OH Ivie and JB Thomas, have held less than 50% of their capacity since 2011. While both lakes caught enough water last year to fill back from the 20-30% range to over 40%, long term trends point to a rapid return to lower levels. Other major, and former, fishing powerhouses in the region have fared even worse. Amistad ended 2024 at 26 percent while Falcon, Bassmaster’s No. 1 bass lake in 2012, sat with less than 15% of its 83,654-acre surface under water.
Another venerable South Texas destination, Choke Canyon, has also been on a steep decline—last full in 2008 and below the fifty-percent mark for more than a decade—Choke Canyon was just over 16% full on January 15.
The arid zone is creeping northward. Canyon Lake above San Antonio has suffered more recent water level declines. Impounded on the Guadalupe River in 1964, Canyon spent much of its 60-year history at near full capacity. This took a dramatic turn a little more than a year ago and the lake’s level has been on a steady decline since, dropping below fifty-percent in the past couple of months. And poor Lake Medina, in the hills west of San Antonio, has been damned near empty (under 3%) for the past year.
Lakes Travis and Buchanan, on the Colorado River above Austin, are quite familiar with extended periods of low water conditions. They are the two largest impoundments on the Highland Lakes chain that also includes lakes Inks, LBJ, Marble Falls and Austin. Even in relatively wet periods, the water levels on Travis and Buchanan can fluctuate significantly. This is not only to keep the constant-level reservoirs in the chain full, but to also satisfy competing demands for water that include: powering three hydroelectric dams, providing water to dozens of municipalities (including one of the ten-largest cities in the U.S.), and fulfilling thirsty irrigation rights owned in perpetuity by downstream agricultural conglomerates. Throw in a dry spell, and it’s not long before it’s a 100-yard walk from the water line to a Lago Vista boat dock.

Arid conditions have become normal in the western and south-central counties of Texas. But though other parts of the state have plenty of water now, the threat of spreading drought is always on the horizon, even in the soggiest regions. From 2011 to 2013 the entire state suffered under “exceptional” drought conditions, with even lakes in the semi-tropical southeast such as Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend experiencing historic lows. Before that, the last extreme statewide drought occurred in the late 1950s.
Several alarming factors appear to indicate the next statewide water crisis could come a lot sooner than the half-century reprieve we had between the last two historic droughts. Prolonged lack of rain is just one of those factors. A surge in population, accompanied by unchecked growth and development—even in areas where water supplies are already scarce or totally used up—is pushing demand into the red zone—faster than water tables and cloudy skies can replenish the supply.
Then there’s inefficiency in the systems that supply water. According to the Comptroller’s office, the average water system in Texas was installed in 1966. This creaky —and leaky—infrastructure is not well suited to deal with the development-on-steroids growth that will only accelerate in coming decades.
Texas, when first encountered by European explorers and then American settlers, was a wonder of natural beauty and resources. But it was also inhospitable in the extreme. The land was hydrated only by a system of river basins that fanned out from the east to west. Spread across these basins were areas of piney wood thickets, post oak savannas, coastal prairies, rugged hill country, high plains, deserts, mountains, and canyons. There was just one natural lake in the entire territory—Caddo—and half of that lake is in Louisiana. The only water came from the skies, feeding rivers and creeks and seeping into the soil and rock, where it formed springs and the water tables that later generations would exploit to exhaustion.
For this region of natural marvels to support civilization, beyond the native tribes that lived off the land for centuries without leaving much of an imprint, it required marvels of a different kind—human ingenuity and feats of grand-scale engineering.
Two centuries of this applied ingenuity later, skyscrapers shade vast stretches of the savannas and prairies, and asphalt roof shingles cover thousands of square miles of former thickets and scenic hillsides. And large bodies of impounded freshwater dot the map from east to west, north to south.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere isn’t creating any more water than it did before Texas was tamed. If anything, covering natural habitat in concrete, on a scale measured in literal geographic degrees of the earth, must have disrupted regional atmospheric activity—such as rainfall patterns.
The resulting tug-of-war for moisture is only going to intensify. And the rope being tugged—like the aging infrastructure drawing down from all those man-made watering holes—just might break before anyone actually wins the war. So, our vigil on lake level and rain gauges around the state will also continue with greater intensity.

 

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com