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Central Texas Water Coalition warns of lasting drought, urges higher lake-storage triggers and legislative changes
Summary
Shannon Hamilton of the Central Texas Water Coalition told Lakeway council that recent extreme rainfall did not erase a prolonged drought cycle, urged raising minimum combined storage and updating the LCRA water-management plan, and outlined legislative and technical actions the coalition will pursue.
The Central Texas Water Coalition (CTWC) told the Lakeway City Council on Oct. 6 that a late-summer flood that briefly raised lake levels did not undo a multi-year drought and that regional water planning and lake release rules need tightening to protect municipal intakes and local economies.
Shannon Hamilton, the coalition's executive director, said lakes that briefly rose after heavy rainfall have already dropped and that hydrologic inflows remain far below historical averages. “Conservation is our new normal,” Hamilton told council members, emphasizing that inflows — the runoff that actually reaches reservoirs — declined 30 to 50 percent in many years and that evaporation and more…
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