The TWDB did a ton of research trying to find more good spots to put new lakes. The sad fact is they could only find seven new sites in Texas and they were not excellent. No use building new lakes that would never fill up or would be empty most of the time. The SAD FACT IS WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH WATER. If there is not enough water to fill the existing lakes new lakes probably would not be full either.

The only way I see to have more adequate supply is through desalination(sp). It would be only for drinking water and it is expensive, but water is expensive right now. We need to ask ourselves, which is better, expensive water, or no water. Another year with no rain in the metromess and they will be looking at NO WATER. $5.00 per thousand gallons (or more) may look pretty good.

I don't know how many places use it, but I know some golf courses use recycled sewage water. Fredricksburg does, and our course at Emerald Bay does. It saves lots of money and lots of new water.

I don't see any salvation for fishing lakes in North Texas. The metromess will own all of the water in all of them and has the power to pump them dry as fast as they fill up.

I read 25% of all water used by the average household went down the flush toilet.

Here's a water saver tip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSfwq5kjEE

As mentioned several times already it is the improper use of water that continues to be at the root of our water problems. Water should be used for growing food, sparse household purposes and in industry where appropriate. But since many influential people are in the water business and active within political circles the cycle of waste and profit taking will continue. Plentiful water makes everything possible and without water nothing lives long.

We might very well live to see thousands of beautiful houses and whole neighborhoods go dry in many parts of the state. Be aware that this is not only a water quantity issue but a water quality issue too. If the water supply is compromised by either of these two threats the end result is the same.

Strong leadership in water conservation efforts is sorely lacking as the battle over ownership and profits has every lawyer in the state drooling over the legal battles to come while we all die of thirst...

Shoot I bet homeowners usage is the number 1 problem. Not just watering lawns. Dishes, clothes, Showers,toilets. Of course it feels better to point the finger at someone else.

Farming in west Texas prolly uses a ton of water even if it comes from a well.

Roughly HALF the CONSUMPTIVE water use in Texas is for golf courses and landscapes in dry climates.

So....

1) Outlaw carpetgrass lawns West of I 45. Xeroscapes only unless grey water is available for irrigation.

2) INSIST that golf courses use grey water and no longer allow them to consume either surface or groundwater that has yet to be used.

3) Go back to pre-2011 water rights where municipalities are the holders of low priority water rights instead of giving them number one priority in order to WASTE our precious water on things like lawns and golf courses. Insist that municipalities enforce water restrictions, cutting off water for all uses except drinking, brushing, flushing and cooking when appropriate (like now).

4) For municipalities near the coast, develop desalination plants for municipal uses (waaay too costly for lawns and golf courses but not for home use where water is charged for).

All of our needs can be met without new reservoirs, without the destruction of more bottomland forests, without having to do anything other than allocate what we have for highest and best uses, rather than squandering it on grass which we cannot eat.

If everyone paid the same price for water Texas would not be as dry as it is. Something is wrong when water can be sold for marginal crop land irrigation at a subsided rate that is 90% less then I have to pay for drinking water. To me it's simple, if you can afford to pay the same price as everyone else, you may do what you want with the water you buy. If you're expecting me to help pay for your water, I want a say in how you use it.

Irrigation is irrigation...I don't care if it's for the golf course or to grow a crop.

Also we have to figure out how to prevent organizations like LCRA from making profits when they release water.

And instead of adding regulation upon regulation about using grey water, how about relaxing those regulations so people would be encouraged to use it to water lawns, flowers and such.

Here's a quote for misinformed city folk...."IF you EAT, you ARE INOLVED in agriculture."

Now if you really, really wanna eat, farmers will havta grow food, and if that water costs the farmer the same I pay for my house ($1.75/1000 gallons) your corn chip bag will cost about $4700.00 and a good piece of steak around $50K. Forget about rice, sugar, or fish.

And sheesh, yep lets let the city slickers water up their lawns, flowers and trees real nice now, and tell them they need to try and eat those things too. I do agree grey water should be easier to utilize. We cannot use water from a fish hatchery to irrigate rice without a permit. It might not have enough pesticide, fertilizer, salt and other pollutants in it to be called agricultural waste water which is legal to reuse.

But to compare irrigating a golf course to irrigating a farm is beyond ridiculous. A typical golf course CONSUMES as much water as 10,000 single family homes (roughly enough for 50,000 people). But the golf club only has around 600 members. So, 600 wealthy business folks and politicians can use the same water as 50,000 regular folks, and nobody says a thing. That same water will irrigate enough crops to provide for well over a million meals. So we can feed millions or we can allow 600 to play once a week, take your pick.

LCRA does get money so do other water companies (Gulf Coast Water Authority, Brazos River Authority, etc.) to maintain reservoirs, channels, canals and pumping stations

As an aquatic biologist, water is my life. I work as a consultant to all manner of aquatic resource interests (including farms and golf courses among many others)) and learn how they use their water.

Basically it boils down to municipalities waste water, farms grow food with water. BUT, there are a lot more city folks than rural ones, and they vote "liberal give away more for me," and do not think nor care about anybody else or the future.

Next day out at the course, try taking lunch directly off the green. Neither tasty nor nutritious.

The Government in place now spent billions on [censored] poor stimulus packages - look some of them up - stupid as [censored] ! Infrastructure projects are the way to fix things - we need the Keystone pipeline and a big water pipe running right down the side of it ! Bring water to Texoma from Alaska and pipe it to all other lakes who need it. This will create jobs and help out the southern water supply. Even if it rained for a month and filled everything up - they would sell it all out to the frackers and we would be in the same position we were in before.

It can get worse.
In California they have neighbors on alert and water police for violations of water restrictions.
People in violation pay huge fines.

We finally have learned that Texas taxpayers building expensive dams out in West Texas does not result in reliable or very useful reservoirs. Hard to swim in sand.

We are never going to get much if any water from out of state.....the Mississippi pipe to Texas dream never will make sense environmentally or financially to anyone but Texans.

The aquifers exist under vast areas of the state, belonging to us all, but are being quickly drained by only a few because some landowners and special individuals are given access to it often for free. They will take years of non-drought years to replenish. .

Only 1 major reservoir is forthcoming where it stands a chance of being filled by rains. Other proposed sites that make sense are off the table because someone inherited a spot of land under it whose family sat on it for a few years and they feel their having that exact spot of creek bottom is more important to them than a reservoir would be to everyone else around them.

This, like watering grass, or irrigating peanut farms in August heat will change when water shortages become severe.

Our opinions differ on several things.
I'm glad we agree on grey water, that could make a difference rather quickly.

I believe I understand your point of view..farmers should receive subsidies because they grow food and that benefits everyone. And farmers are just Mom and Pop trying to make a living from working the fields and feeding America. You believe that even if the land is marginal or impossible to farm without subsidized irrigation,non-farmers should pay 10X or more as much for our water ? Yeah, I disagree.

Your gloom and doom scenario of 50K steaks ignores the fact that the farmers could still get the water they need to grow crops if they drilled wells, which they would do IF they didn't have a sweetheart less then a penny on the dollar deal to buy cheap water. There won't be 50K steaks and 5K corn chips because of market competition. It's like the free market and less government stuff I've heard conservatives wishing for. If no one can make money doing what they do WITHOUT subsidized help, let them figure out something else to do, or a better way to do it.

It really is all about the Benjamins...If they get ultra cheap water riding the city slickers backs, sticking the city slickers with paying for all the improvements like dams and whining about green lawns, they'll keep riding, sticking, and whining. If they have to pay a higher price closer to what the city slickers pay, they'll find another way to keep farming. Real farmers know droughts happen. That's why there is government subsidized crop insurance (spending even more of our money to help farmers keep the profit margins up)

Irrigation is irrigation...If it costs too much too be profitable (rice,corn and the golf course) it will stop.
I pay the big bucks to irrigate my vegetable garden and I don't need a bunch of farmers trying to make rules about when I can and can't water my tomatoes.

Just a bit curious....where did you learn about agriculture?

I am a FARMER and I work in the field of water resource management. There isn't enough space to try and explain things here, but a course in Food and Fiber crops from an agricultural institution of higher learning would help you understand how water, agriculture and politics fits together.

I receive NO SUBSIDIES of any kind whatsoever, well, I do get to purchase some things without paying tax, that's it.

Do you have ANY IDEA how much farmers are paying for water vs. what a municipality pays for that same water? Cities get the water cheap, farmers pay considerably more for the same water a city gets. Maybe long ago water was cheap for farmers. 20 years ago I paid $6/acre-foot for water out of the Brazos, now that same water costs a farmer $212.50 and the farmer gets only "volume" and not "quality" in the water purchased. Many times it may be OK to drink and use for the city but too salty for farming.

My primary point is that municipalities utilize the vast majority of the water they consume on lifestyle issues not even closely associated with eating, drinking, flushing, or cooking. Most of the water is for watering grass.

drill a well say you? I did that.....

http://www.edwardsaquifer.net/pucek.html

It was almost immediately taken by the state under imminent domain so that the people of San Antonio would not have to build a grey water system to recover and reuse their wasted water to water lawns and golf courses. Saved the city slickers a ton of money but put an honest farmer right out of business without anything close to "due process." Nowadays all that grass is irrigated through the CONSUMPTIVE USE of new, fresh, clean, water.

Oh yeah, all those lakes in the highlands? San Antonio contributed NOT ONE CENT for any of that as they believed they had all the water they would ever need for free underground.

what can an honest, hard working, productive farmer say to that? FOR SHAME!

Any other good ideas?

The answer to what happened to the water is something nobody wants to really think about, because part of the solution is unthinkable...

Think about population. 1950 it was approx 2.5 billion, today it is close to 7 billion. Think about all the water that is being contained in those other 5.5 billions of people bodies (human body is approx 60% water, 90% of their weight). This water is contained and anything that leaves must go back in or the person dies.

This basically means that the average person is carrying around 14 gallons of water at any given time. 14 gallons x 5.5 Trillion is 77 Trillion Gallons of water that is no longer running through our lakes and streams. To put this in perspective, NASA (and some other scientists) say that 11 Trillion Gallons is needed just to get California out of the current drought problem (not have extra). Lake Mead's current level contains approximately 4 Trillion gallons of water.
I find it interesting that all of the estimates of water on Earth leave out this "human container".

Just some thoughts to add to the "where is the water?" question.

Are you suggesting we harvest the water from people? LOL. Not sure why you multiplied 14 gallons times 5.5 trillion.

When did we go from billions to trillions of people on Earth?

11,000,000,000,000/325,851=33,757,760.4 acre-feet of water. Sounds like a lot, but not in the context of the size of California.

The water carried in our (and all living thing's) bodies is part of the "water cycle" which we learned about in grade school. Once again, in the context of the entire planet, is just "stored" and will be returned to the cycle on a continuing basis.