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Canadian River Municipal Water Authority

by The Texas Network on Mar 19, 2012

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CRMWA History & System ...

CRMWA History & System
Drought & CRMWA’s Response
Future Infrastructure Development

Presented by Kent Satterwhite, Canadian River Municipal Water Authority at the TWCA annual conference

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CRMWA was created in ‘53 and project construction began in 1960.They finished construction in ‘68 and started delivering water that year. I might note that since that time, we have delivered over 900 billion gallons of lake water. That is nearly a trillion gallons that would have came from the non-renewable Ogallala otherwise. In 2001, we completed the John C. Williams Wellfield and Aqueduct and began delivering groundwater. This project was designed to enhance the quality of the water being delivered by blending 25% groundwater with Meredith water in the pipeline. It has changed significantly in the short period since then. By 2005 it was obvious the Lake was in trouble. We began buying additional groundwater rights and are still doing that today.
This chart tells the story. The black dashed line across the middle is the average inflow in AF/yr over the history of the Lake. One thing that’s different for us compared to most of you is that our drought started in 2001.
In 2001 we broke an all time record for low inflow.
We broke that again in ’02. After ‘02, we did the math to see what the odds were of having 3 record breaking years in a row and it was clear from those results that it just wouldn’t happen.
We broke the record again in ‘03. ‘05 would have been a record breaker if it hadn’t been for 1, 2, & 3. 4 was a little better but still below average.
Then another record breaker in 6
A bad year in 7, slightly better in 8
another record breaker in 9
and nearly again in 10.
Then there was last year. Last year shattered the previous low inflow records. It was so bad that this year is the first year in our history that we don’t expect there to be any surface water available to deliver.
This graph shows the results of this run of bad years. In 2000, we had over 400,000 AF in storage at a depth of over 90’. Today we are under 22,000 AF (about 5% of what we had then) and a depth of just over 30’!
As you know, water quality typically follows storage volume. This is pretty much a mirror image of the storage volume in Meredith. The red line shows the state standard for chlorides and the Lake is now more than 4 times that standard at over 1300 ppm. Our total dissolved solids are over 3400 ppm! I’m not sure anyone would want this water even if we could get to it.
These pictures show visually what has happened to the lake. In the top picture, the lake was about 50’ deep at this mid-point on the Lake. In ‘08, thisisnow the end of the lakeratherthan the mid-point.
This is what it looks like now. I took this picture on a windy day last spring to show the dust blowing where there used to be Lake. I say this is what it looks like now but that isn’t entirely accurate. Later in 11 there was no hint of green to be seen except the trees and this time of year there is no green at all.
This is our original system. We lift the water 800’ from the Lake to Amarillo. Then it’s gravity flow to Lubbock and on to Lamesa. The system has a capacity of 112 MGD or 126,000 AF/yr. In ’01, our Salinity Control and groundwater projects came online. Last year we completed our 1st wellfield expansion. This expansion doubled the well capacity but didn’t change the transmission capacity. We now have about 100,000 AF/yr well capacity with around 70k transmission capacity.
When the drought 1st started, this is what our water rights looked like. At that time we didn’t know the drought had started.
By 2005, it was clear the Lake was in trouble. We purchased around 220,000 acres of high quality, highly productive water rights in 05 & 6. As you can see from this map, all of our acreage was contiguous but not the prettiest layout. Mesa Water was pretty intermingled with ours and if we were to both fully develop there would have been problems.
We closed on the Mesa Water the last business day of ‘11. The map is much prettier now but obviously there are still lots of theses white areas it would make sense for us to have. We are working on those areas now. We are really offering to buy these areas to be fair as much as anything. Nearly all of this is rough ranchland with no irrigation and only windmills for cattle water. Part of our agreement with these landowners is they can’t irrigate or have any commercial use of the water. Only livestock & domestic water and that means no feedlots and only one residence per 160 acres. We think we now own more groundwater than anyone in the nation. Around 26 million AF or 8½ trillion gallons. Under the worst circumstances, this is enough water to last us for 130 years. If the Lake comes back, that life will be much longer.
If the Lake doesn’t come back soon, we’ll need to add another pipeline to get this water to town. We are currently working on a study to see when this additional capacity will be required. Problem is, our member cities have a wide range of needs and abilities. They range in population from 230k to 830! The big end is growing and the small end is shrinking. Our early estimates of adding additional capacity is in the range of $250 million. That would double our groundwater delivery capacity but also double our investment in the project. It will be hard for our Cities to absorb but they may not have any choice depending on what happens with the Lake in the near future. When we add this additional capacity, our Cities will then be drought proof.
These are pictures taken from near where I took the other pictures except these are looking up-stream. Notice the salt cedar in the bottom picture. That‘s all dead now. We’ve sprayed over 24,000 acres of salt cedar in an attempt to increase inflow to Meredith. Now all we need is runoff. We’ve transitioned from surface water to groundwater in a little over 10 years. Our water supply has gone from 100% surface water to 100% groundwater. This has been a huge expense to our population base of ½ million people. The good news is, no one had to move. As I said earlier, we now have enough water to last 130 years under drought conditions the whole time and much longer if and when the Lake comes back.

Canadian River Municipal Water Authority Presentation Transcript

Canadian RiverMunicipal Water Authority CRMWA History & System Drought & CRMWA’s Response Future Infrastructure Development
2011 $82 million Mesa water rights purchaseCRMWA Timeline 2010 2011 Wellfield Expansion (double capacity) 2006 $50 million new water rights 2005 $30 million new water rights 2001 Salinity Control Project 2000 2001 Completion of John C Williams Wellfield 40 Years 900 Billion Gallons 1990 1980 1970 1968 Completion of Aqueduct 1965 Completion of Dam 1962 1960 Construction Begins 1960 CRMWA/BOR Contracts 1953 CRMWA is created by the State Legislature 1950 1950 Federal Approval 1949 Canadian River Water Users Association 1940’s BOR/Corps Studies
Late 19982008
2011
Canadian River Project OklahomaBuilt by: Bureau of Reclamation Texas River Lake Conchas Meredith Borger Reservoir Ute Lake Pampa Canadian Amarillo New Mexico Plainview Texas Levelland Lubbock Slaton Tahoka Brownfield ODonnell Lamesa 0 10 20 30 40 50 Scale in Miles
Current Groundwater System Original Wellfield (JCW) - $83,500,000 Roberts 2005 Bond Issue - $50,000,000 2006 Bond Issue - $50,000,000 Hemphill 2009 Bond Issue - $21,600,000 Moore Hutchinson 2011 Bond Issue - $81,630,000 Phase 1-2_________________________________ Phase 3 TOTAL - $286,730,000 Borger Potter Pampa Carson Gray Wheeler Wellfield Capacity • 46 Production Wells Amarillo • Estimated Avg Capacity 1,350 gpm • 46 miles 54-inch pipe • Total well capacity 100,000 acre-feet/yr • Pipeline capacity 70,000 acre-feet/yr To Southern Cities
What’s Next? If Lake Meredith doesn’t come back “soon”, additional infrastructure to produce this new water may be required to fill the original lake water system with groundwater. Original lake water Roberts system design capacity 112 MGD. Hemphill Moore Hutchinson Current groundwater Phase 1-2 system capacity is Phase 3 64 MGD. Borger A second groundwater system could make the Potter Pampa original lake water system whole. Carson Gray Wheeler CRMWA Member Amarillo CRMWA II Cities would then be “drought proof”! To Southern Cities
Transition from Lake Meredith to Groundwater CRMWA’s water supply has transitioned from lake water to groundwater in just over 10 years. With this current purchase, we now have groundwater to last well over a century, even under drought conditions the entire time. A major expense but no one had to move!