Hydrology

As Deer Creek well dries up, and those of our Fitzhugh Road neighbors, up here on the Shingle Hills we are grateful our five year old deep well is flowing.

Kaila and I wandered around Reimers park today, and we ventured down the ravine that is hard by the parking area. It's a marvel. Even in this drought it oozes moisture. Delicate maidenhair ferns grow out of the cracks. Easily it's ten degrees cooler in there. Trickles seep into little pools that get deeper as you further down the ravine. It's a cross section of the aquifer you can explore in a quarter mile, between the road and the river.

This water is emerging 500 feet below our house, about five miles west of us. This gives you an idea where the water table lies. The water emerges into the Pedernales and joins the lake water to become property of the Lower Colorado River Authority.

From here on in Deer Creek is going to be getting its water from LCRA one way or another: the water line or the tanker. Utimately, this whole booming region will get its water from the LCRA.

But how much water is there really? During drought times like this, the entire basin's water supply comes from seeps like this. LCRA owes Austin 50 years worth of water, and Austin's growth story is predicated on that availability. And then there's the growth they're promoting in our area and westward, and then there's San Antonio.

The story from LCRA has to be that our water supplies are unlimited, or else the corporations and builders who form their constituency get cold feet over making capital investments here. Is anybody checking their math?

What's happening to our wells, this year, could be happening to the Colorado River during our next 50-year drought.