I'm definitely not the expert here, and maybe this isn't as big of problem here in Texas as it is back in Kansas with all the farm ground, but on very wet years, soil erosion fills the bottom of our lakes with silt. And this lake volume area is never replenish-able unless expensive dredging or digging out during very dry years. I'm not downing farming at all as my parents still farm and conservation practices are getting better with no-till farming practices.

As someone already mentioned, it's a combination of all previously stated factors. But personally I think the lack of consistent rainfall over multi-year periods is the main contributor to the low lake levels.

Water quality is a problem, too. Google Tennessee Colony lake project and read about the giant lake project for the trinity in the '70's that would have covered all of where Richland Chambers is now, and backed up all the way to the Cedar Creek dam. It was never built because the polluted trinity would have given it even more water quality problems than Livingston suffers from.

In these days of drought and low water, that's a real shame, too. More wetlands projects like the one on the East Fork Trinity would seem to be a good way to reclaim some of that polluted water.