Thousands Of Texas Farmers Won't Get Irrigation Water For The First Time In History
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Posted 3/4/2012 3:54 pm
HOUSTON (AP) Thousands of Texas rice farmers won't get water for irrigation this year because lakes and rivers remain low after more than a year of drought. The Lower Colorado River Authority said Friday it won't release water from two Austin-area lakes into the rivers and canals the farmers use for irrigation. The announcement was expected, but notable as the first time in the authority's history that it won't provide the water. Texas is one of the six largest rice producers in the country, and the farmers in the Colorado River basin make up almost three-quarters of the state's total rice acreage. But without irrigation, many farmers will be able to plant only a fraction of the rice they usually grow, and some won't plant any. "Farmers were prepared for the almost inevitability of this ... but things came so close at the end, there were some who thought we might get it," said Ronald Gertson, who grows rice in Lissie, about 60 miles southwest of Houston. Conditions have eased in recent weeks with some significant rains, but two-fifths of the state remains in a severe drought. As of Friday morning, lakes Travis and Buchanan were about 3,200 acre-feet, or more than 1 billion gallons, short of the level they'd need to reach for the farmers to receive water. A small percentage of farmers, those with senior water rights along the river, will get about 20,000 acre-feet of water. The rest will not get any.
Posted 3/4/2012 4:04 pm
Been draining aquifers for decades and now there's nothing left to pull out for bad years. The reason the aquifers have been so badly managed is because Texans won't let it be managed. They treat the aquifer as if every land owner sits on his own little bubble of water that belongs to him alone and won't let the government regulate use to prevent things like this happening.
Tragedy of the commons isn't something we should see in this day and age, except there are too many selfish morons who refuse to let the government do anything for blind ideological reasons.
GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF RESOURCES IS BAD!!! WE HAD A RIGHT TO PULL OUT ALL THE WATER WE COULD WITHOUT GIVING A FLYING FUCK FOR THE FUTURE!! ANYTHING ELSE IS COMMUNISM!!!
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Matter of fact, most of those redneck retards actually invested moar money in bigger pumping systems, with the idea being that it was some sort of competition to get "their" water before the neighbor did.
Some estimates put the 'dry-up' at around 25 years or so, for the Ogallala.
Of course, we can all rest easy knowing that stupid libs are wrong about just about everything: peak oil, climate change, aquifer reserves, round earth, etc., etc.
Posted 3/4/2012 5:40 pm
they will drain the aquifer, everything will dry up, the land will become a wasteland for 25 years, supporting no life, with no life, the aquifer will gradually be replaced. Circle of life.
Posted 3/4/2012 5:43 pm
There are other sources for rice - the only people this affects are those particular farmers, so fuck 'em... but that Ogallala thing is another story
Posted 3/4/2012 5:47 pm
Texans won't screw themselves. They will probably hijack the distribution points on the Colorado. BTW, I've ridden a horse through that river twice - the second time (on the same day) they had opened up the gates to let the water flow. Almost didn't make it across...
Posted 3/4/2012 6:18 pm
Whoa, all you keyboard water experts forget, this is the land of bensa. One piss from bensa, once purified, would supply enough water to make Texas look like Minnesota.
Oh, it's MUCH better than that. A shitload of that water gets used to grow cotton in that region, that gets exported to make Pakistani clothes that we re-import.
