Cities seek to change drought order

November 29, 2012, 9:00 pm by James Walker

Firm water customers of the Lower Colorado River Authority, including the cities of Austin and Burnet, have begun to take the lead in an attempt to convince the authority’s board of directors to revisit a controversial emergency drought order they approved earlier this month.

"I believe with the lack of rainfall and the way the level of the lakes is falling we are heading in the direction of reconsidering the drought order if not in December then certainly in January,” Burnet City Manager David Vaughn said Thursday.

The next LCRA board meeting is Dec. 18 and 19 in Bastrop.

Vaughn plans to brief Burnet City Council members on the issue at their next scheduled meeting Dec. 11 and recommend seeking a contested case hearing before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality if the new emergency order is not altered to conform to the provisions in the current order, which expires Dec. 31.

"We are headed south faster than anyone thought we would,” Vaughn said of the falling storage levels in the Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis reservoirs that provide drinking and household water for more than a million Central Texas residents.