The Lubbock area has gotten around seven inches of rain since the beginning of May, with some places seeing even more. After a long dry spell, it’s been a welcome relief. But what does it actually mean for drought conditions?
Jason Coleman from the High Plains Water District recently joined News Director Sarah Self-Walbrick in the studio with us to give some insight.
This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
Sarah Self-Walbrick: Jason, to start, tell us more about the High Plains Water District and what y’all do.
Jason Coleman: The High Plains Water District was created in 1951 and has been around for a long time now. But the extent of the water district has changed some over time. Today, roughly, we cover an area from west of Amarillo around the community of Bushland, down to actually O’Donnell and Lynn County at the further south point. And then from the state line on west with New Mexico over to the Caprock escarpment on the east. So, we are a local government. We have five elected board of directors. The Texas State Legislature lays out the laws that govern our district and others that are subject to Chapter 36 of the Texas Water code. But we have conservation in the name, and that's what we hope to talk about some today. Excited to talk about some rain, there's no question about that.
SSW: It is such a nice change in conversation from what we normally get to talk about around here. We've experienced a drought for many, many months now. How would you say that's affected the area, just kind of overall?
JC: There were several good news stories in the last year, particularly last fall, as we had a lot of crop loss. This is an agricultural community, an agricultural area. The impacts of the drought to the agricultural sector have been substantial. There was a lot of crop abandonment last year, even the irrigated acreage that the wind, the heat, lack of rain, all of that was significant enough that there was a crop loss even early on. And so, the ramifications of that are trickle down. The local communities that might normally have a certain amount of agricultural suppliers were affected, those families that are involved and engaged in agricultural jobs and careers also affected. So yeah, it was very notable that we just didn't have any helpful rain in the early part of the year last year. And then of course, like you mentioned, this has been going on for a while now, that we've had these really big challenges in just getting crops established because of the lack of rainfall.
SSW: Does the recent rain help ease drought conditions very much? I know it seems like we’ve gotten a lot of rain. But, I mean, has it been enough to make a dent in the issue?
JC: Yes, absolutely. So there's a number of different ways that drought may be characterized, may be measured. One of the things that we try to share in in the district newsletter, as an example, is an update of the severity of drought in the state. And that's a product of the National Drought Mitigation Center. There are several classifications of drought and those go from not much at all to exceptional drought. And, unfortunately, a lot of our area in the water district’s been covered by exceptional drought for a while. I just looked, and last week's update shows that that's been changing for the better. Finally, we're now into a scenario where actually a lot of the water district is just abnormally dry and is not in this exceptional drought category. So yes, thankful for the rain. No doubt it is helping.
SSW: What happens when you get so much rain as we have? I've seen from the High Plains Water District’s area, there's been plenty of places that have seen some pretty scary flash flooding and situations like that. So just from an environmental perspective, what happens when you get as much rain as we have, after a long period of it being so dry?
JC: There are all kinds of stories that you see, and we'll hear from different people, as they are right underneath one of these downpours. you might say, and then several miles away, it's not raining at all. These are the convective thunderstorms that pop up and are common to the spring months here in our area.
But I want to just talk for a minute about the usefulness of some of this water that does run off. So as one example, the playa lakes in our region are focal points of recharge for the aquifer, which the principal aquifer is the Ogallala. And one of the ways that these function is there are periods of dry weather, that result in the floor of these lakes developing large cracks. Now, those cracks will not form until that is dry for a period of time. But when those cracks form, that's part of the cycle. When rainfall then does occur in an amount that results in some runoff, then those basins are filled. The first bit of water that is introduced is running through these deep cracks. So the facilitation of recharge is really notable there because those cracks are quite deep. And so the water that's introduced is already moving downward, percolating downward, through these deep cracks. And then of course, over time, that clay will swell and those cracks will close up, if you will, and then some additional recharge continues from there forward just in a little different manner.
We have, as an example, seen some photos from what's called Running Water Draw in Parmer County. It's interesting to see that in recent news and some other photos that have been available online, for example, that there has actually been running water in Running Water Draw. And so those times are kind of few and far between anymore, it seems like. But yeah, this rainfall and the runoff that occurs along with it, has been instrumental in filling the supply of basins and is certainly providing some much-needed relief.
SSW: Knowing that our drought conditions have improved because of the recent rainfall, what would it take to get our area completely out of the drought?
JC: It's interesting - that is likely a story that gets told almost in square-mile intervals. Because of some of the spotty nature of the rain, you may find someone that says, “you know, we have had some rain and my yard is greened up. But we haven't seen some of the flash flooding or some of the other heavier events.” There are though, if someone's really interested in these issues being quantified, there are some products that are available online, for instance, like the National Drought Mitigation Center, that attempt to quantify the additional rainfall that is needed to resolve the status of a particular level of drought.
SSW: What does water security and supply look like on the South Plains?
JC: This is such an important topic. And again, thanks for the invite, so that we can continue to try to promote conservation and awareness. In the history of our region, if you're from Amherst for example, or one of the communities here on the South Plains, these periods of some sandstorms, the dry weather and all, are somewhat expected. But thank goodness they are cyclical, too. Because when we see some of this rain and things start to green up again, boy, it just invigorates hope. We do live in the desert, but you know, the desert can be nice at times too.
So, we have a lot of rural communities in the region. These rural communities for the most part depend on underground water only. And certainly the businesses that are out in the countryside, many of which are agricultural, also depend on underground water as the only source of water or rainfall. Now Lubbock and some of the other communities have infrastructure in place that brings water from the panhandle area north of Amarillo from both Lake Meredith and from additional groundwater resources there. But man alive, the communities no matter how small, that are depending on groundwater, are just like the agricultural producers beside them, right? \Watching the wells run more continuously during dry periods. That's expensive. And you know, the maintenance on pumps and all is of course getting more expensive too. So, pumping groundwater is definitely an expense. The help from rain is beneficial in many ways.
SSW: Summer is a time when we use a lot of water. Maybe not so much this year, but for lawns, pools, things like that. What are some ways that folks can conserve this season?
JC: This is an excellent opportunity to try to promote one of the programs the Water District has been sponsoring. It's called Water My Yard, it is a program that is run by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. And there are local weather stations that are gathering data and making recommendations for water in your yard. And we at the High Plains Water District are sponsoring two of those sites. One is in Wolfforth and one is in Canyon, because that's also in the water district. What happens is those stations collect information, and then a subscriber - there's no cost to subscribe, you can access this through our website hpwd.org. And you will have either an email or a text recommendation weekly, and you can choose which day you want it, and it will give you a suggested watering interval. Now if you're in town, obviously you still observe your local watering restrictions and all. If you don't know some of the particulars about how you irrigate your landscape, it's OK. If you become familiar with the program and you use it some, then you might want to change a couple of the parameters to better suit whatever your circumstances may be. But it is good that it's using that local weather data and precip data to make some educated decisions on when do I water my yard. Education is a big part of this.
