Water summit: Drought solutions in short supply

With the Rio Grande Valley staring down the worst drought in more than 20 years, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. hosted a meeting of representatives of water and irrigation districts, water suppliers, municipal officials from around the county and state officials to get a sense of where everyone stands in terms of water conservation measures.

The answer: All over the place. Some communities around the Valley have already implemented drought contingency plans in one phase or another calling for residents to abide by conservation guidelines, while others have not yet done so. Trevino said he also hoped to hear any short-term solutions being undertaken to address the looming crisis, but was largely disappointed on that score.

Longer term plans for addressing drought were discussed, however, and included calls for more brackish groundwater desalination facilities and upgrades to antiquated irrigation infrastructure that results in excessive water loss.

Meanwhile, according to Texas Commission on Environment Quality Rio Grande Watermaster Anthony Stambaugh, who was also in attendance, the combined U.S. share of water stored in the Amistad/Falcon reservoir system has fallen to less than 22 percent, or about 774,000 acre-feet of water. One acre-foot is how much water it takes to cover one acre of land in one foot of water.

A sorghum field and dry earth is seen Monday afternoon, Aug. 8, 2022, in Brownsville. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The Brownsville Public Utilities Board’s drought contingency plan was triggered at 25 percent, while more stringent Stage 3 measures will by implemented — for the first time in BPUB history — if the U.S. reservoir percentage falls to 15 percent. Some other county communities are following suit, though not all. Valley Municipal Utility District No. 2 (Rancho Viejo) announced Monday that it had moved to Stage 3.

Ironically, water conservation can lead to wasted water in some instances, as Harlingen Waterworks System General Manager Tim Skoglund pointed out. Municipal water systems are required to maintain a “disinfectant residual” in their systems, though the disinfectant — chlorine — degrades over time, especially at higher temperatures, he said.

Out in the extremities of a long water system with many dead ends like Harlingen’s, flushing is required when the disinfectant falls to a certain level, Skoglund said.

“In the month of June, Harlingen Waterworks had the necessity of flushing approximately 65 million gallons of water for that purpose, so conservation is a strategy that is counterproductive,” he said. “The more customers use, the less flushing that you have to do.”

This poses a dilemma, since the Valley really is in the grip of a serious drought and reservoirs really are critically low and falling. On a separate but related note, there’s a shortage of chlorine.

The issue of wasted water due to flushing spurred a discussion of how to capture that water and deposit it back into the main system, though Skoglund noted that’s tough to do with no sort of conveyance nearby.

A view of the Rio Grande River Monday afternoon, Aug. 8, 2022, in Brownsville. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

John O’Valle, regional section chief for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said an opportunity is coming up to apply for grant money to address just that issue.

Trevino said that, while he understands the operational issues cited by Skoglund, it’s important for county residents to be mindful of the drought situation and conserve water as much as possible.

Steven Sanchez, general manager of North Alamo Water Supply Corporation in Edinburg, advised every water supplier at the meeting to pursue brackish groundwater desalination projects to ensure adequate water in future droughts.

NASWC owns and operates four desalination plants and co-operates a fifth, while BPUB’s Southmost Water Authority desalination plant has nearly a 10 million-gallon-per-day (MGD) capacity and is in the process of expanding it in the near term to 12 million MGD.

“People need to start working on it,” Sanchez said. “That’s not short term. That’s going to take two or three years or so, and money. But they need to start now.”


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