Why the Hill Country is running dry—and why it's a terrible omen for the rest of Texas.

[Are_grits_groceries]

Silent Springs by Forrest wilder

Sixty feet below the shimmering surface of Jacob’s Well, an artesian spring that for thousands of years has pulsed iridescent blue-green water from the Trinity Aquifer to the surface, a sophisticated instrument measures the spring’s vital signs. The results are beamed almost instantaneously to the Internet.

These days the gauge detects only the thinnest of pulses.

On a hot April afternoon, David Baker, an artist turned conservationist, stands on the limestone lip gazing down into Jacob’s Well. Earlier, Baker had checked the spring flow: an anemic five gallons per second. “At that point, the spring has basically stopped flowing,” he says.

Old-timers recall—and spotty historical data confirm—that the spring used to have enough of a head to jet swimmers back to the surface after they cannonballed in. Today the pulse is barely a dying man’s heartbeat. In 2000, Jacob’s Well stopped flowing for the first time in recorded history.
<snip>
The trouble is hardly limited to Jacob’s Well or the Hill Country. Groundwater scarcity is a looming crisis across Texas. Because of drought, overpumping, and the loss of natural recharge, state water planners estimate that groundwater available for pumping will decrease 22 percent by 2060. The state’s laissez-faire water laws and cumbersome regulatory apparatus have done little to help.

Conservationists see bad omens in what’s happening to Jacob’s Well and the Trinity Aquifer. Water is particularly fragile in the Hill Country, designated by the state in 1990 as a priority groundwater management area. In no other region of the state, perhaps, are groundwater and surface water so closely intertwined. The science is clear: If the aquifers decline, they take the springs, seeps, streams, rivers, and lakes with them.


http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=3047

Every part of the country is going to have a crisis. California is also having major problems now. If you thought the oil crisis was bad, this is whole levels of worse.

Somebody told me that desalinization plants could take care of it. Google those. It takes time to build them, and they have their own set of problems. We are already behind the curve.

[konnichi wa]

1. The mechanics of desalinating water are very similar to distilling spirits: Imagine

having to manufacture a hundred gallons of whiskey for every person in the state...every day.

[mahina]

2. First rule of holes: stop digging. I hope people can be encouraged to stop wasting water.

This little thing is a great start, so you can use grey water from your sink to flush rather than flushing pristine drinking water. http://www.vivavi.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=31_182&products_id=1110&osCsid=594ed7b39bdd0fd83fcb25c3ddb289e3

I'm sure its decades too late but it's a start. Water will be a critical resource for the whole world soon.

[Uben]

3. We had been in a severe drought.....

...here in my part of north Texas since September, but everything is brimful and saturated now. After about 12" of rain in the last couple of weeks, everything is green and soggy....finally! Our lake (640 acres) was about 2 ft low. That doesn't sound bad, but it's a constant level lake fed by springwater. Three yrs ago, the springs stopped running for the first time since 1970! They are running fine now that some water has leeched into the aquifers, so hopefully we'll continue to get periodic rains that can replenish them fully

[blogslut]

4. And simultaneously,

The Ogallala Aquifer is also depleting:



Anyone who supports T. Boone Pickens should be made aware that the real target of his greed is that underground body of water - The Ogallala Aquifer. His little wind farm scam is nothing more than ruse, designed to confiscate Texas land under the auspices of eminent domain, so that he can drain that baby dry.