Lower Colorado River Authority seeks approval for water management plan

The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) in the US has submitted its new proposed water management plan to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for review and approval.

The new plan was adopted by LCRA’s board of directors last month for lakes Buchanan and Travis, water supply reservoirs that serve about a million people in Central Texas.

It will determine how water is allocated from these lakes and help LCRA more flexibility to respond to severe droughts.

LCRA said the management plan will use two trigger points during the year to determine how much stored water from the lakes is available for agriculture, mostly downstream rice farming.

The practice of making unlimited water from the lakes available for downstream agricultutre will also be eliminated and in future, the amount of stored water available from the lakes for downstream agricultural operations would have an upper limit at all times.

The plan will also ask water customers to reduce water use consistent with their drought plans after interruptible water from the lakes for agriculture is restricted.

Now that LCRA has submitted the plan for approval, TCEQ has up to 12 months to determine if the application is administratively complete to perform its technical review.

Image: LCRA’s new proposed water management plan determines how water is allocated from lake Travis. Photo: Peter17.