Thursday, August 29, 1996

Lake J.B. Thomas near Snyder is 96 percent empty
By LORETTA FULTON
Regional Editor

Snyder's main source of water, Lake J.B. Thomas, is 4 percent full. Or 96 percent empty if you're a pessimist.

The main man in charge of the lake's well-being is an optimist.

"It's been worse before," said John Grant, general manager of the Colorado River Municipal Water District in Big Spring.

With a lake so shallow people are finding lost fishing rods and lures where they used to find fish, that's hard to swallow.

But Grant swears that because of vision and good planning, it is so.

The water district serves three member cities, Odessa, Big Spring and Snyder, as well as customers Midland and San Angelo from its three lakes - Thomas, Spence and Ivie.

Grant, the optimist, is not worried about folks in his charge shriveling up because of a lack of water.
"We probably have more surface water available to us now than we have ever had in history," Grant said.

Since last Friday, Lake Thomas has caught 850 acre feet of water, raising the lake level .7 of a foot, Grant said. Another inch of rain fell in Snyder Wednesday.

Even if no more water flows into parched Lake Thomas, Snyder residents are OK. The water district has activated its water wells in Snyder, and it has its two other lakes to draw from.

"If we don't get more runoff, we'll pump from Ivie and Spence to meet the city of Snyder's needs," Grant said.

Lake Ivie went into service in March 1995 and apparently has solved most of the water woes in this part of the state.

"Without Lake Ivie we'd be in a world of hurt right now," Grant said.

The massive Lake Ivie, located in Concho, Coleman, and Runnels counties, stands at 68 percent full with 380,000 acre feet of water. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land one foot deep.

Lake Spence, in Coke County, is 22 percent full with 106,000 acre feet.

By comparison, Lake Thomas has only 8,300 acre feet, down from a capacity of 204,000 acre feet.
Good rains the past several days have people all over this area smiling. Even the threat of a tornado didn't dampen spirits in Jones County Wednesday.

"Everything is calm," said a sheriff's department spokesperson. An individual reported seeing a funnel touch down near Noodle, but officers could not confirm it, she said.

"I think someone just got a little excited," she said. The officers did report some rainfall, "but it wasn't even real heavy."

Despite warnings of flash flooding in Stephens and Throckmorton counties, nothing materialized.
"The weather service told us we were having that (flooding)," said Stephens County Sheriff Jim Reeves. However, he said no roads were closed.

Some roads were under water briefly, he said, "but as soon as it quits raining, it drains off again."
Rain started falling in the county about 8 o'clock Wednesday morning and fell most of the day. Reeves said Lake Hubbard was getting a little low.

"I'm hoping they got some rain up around Aspermont that will flow down and fill the lake up," he said.

The sheriff's hopes were fulfilled. It rained about 3 inches in 24 hours, according to the Stonewall County Sheriff's Office.

Wednesday afternoon another cloud was moving in, promising to bring even more needed rainfall.
Also Wednesday, Shackelford County got 1.2 inches. In neighboring Throckmorton County, a couple of inches fell, covering highways for about 30 minutes.

"It's all gone back down now," Deputy Clint Harper said Wednesday afternoon. No problems resulted, he added. "It's just good running water - it was a change."