Friday, June 14, 1996

Drought Forces Cities To Look Elsewhere For Water Supplies

By MARK BABINECK
Associated Press

IRA - Chris Edwards has fond memories about a spot about 500 feet off the northern shore of Lake J.B. Thomas.

"We'd swim right up there," said Edwards, 31, pointing toward a black truck sitting firmly where a lake bed once was. Catfish and turtles used to scavenge where picnic tables and trash cans now sit.

The lake, about 20 miles southwest of Edwards' hometown of Snyder, sometimes gushed over its 204,000 acre-feet capacity soon after it was built.

Today, it is a relative puddle at less than 12,000 acre-feet - about 5 percent - of what it once held.
It isn't at its lowest level, which occurred under similar conditions in 1971, but it's getting close. If it doesn't start raining consistently, Snyder might have to look elsewhere for its tap water for the first time since the lake's construction in the 1950s.

"People will not do without, and we've never had to ration," said Martha Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Big Spring-based Colorado River Municipal Water Authority. "Hopefully, people will voluntarily begin to conserve."

Snyder, Midland, Odessa and San Angelo are among the cities that receive water from the authority, and Abilene will begin drawing from 6-year-old Ivie Reservoir in about 10 years.

Lake Thomas used to supply Big Spring and Odessa as well as injection wells for the many oil rigs
in the mineral-rich Permian Basin. Now, Snyder is the sole destination for its water.

"If Lake Thomas does not catch any substantial runoff by November of next year, it will be deemed useless (as a drinking source)," said Darrell Callahan, Snyder's water superintendent. The Spence and Ivie reservoirs, about 55 and 100 miles southwest of Snyder, would become the city's primary water sources.

Snyder is in no danger of the crisis that has afflicted the town of Edgewood, east of Dallas. There they've had to scramble in recent weeks to tie into an alternate water source thanks to the drought.

Snyder recently reopened four wells that had remained dormant since the last time Bull Creek and Lake Thomas' other feeder streams dried up in the early 1970s. Callahan said the wells are used as a supplement to the lake water.

"The more wells we can run, the less water we have to take out of the lake on a daily basis," he said. "It's a lot cheaper to run wells than run water from the reservoirs."

Edwards and fishing buddy William Foree, 28, also of Snyder, agree that the fishing hasn't suffered as the water levels have shrunk. They spent Tuesday evening trying to match the 22-pound blue catfish Foree's father had caught the day before.

They still shake their heads when they remember the J.B. Thomas of their youth.

"They didn't use it right," Edwards said over the hum of a nearby pump drawing more water into Snyder's pipes.