Ivie was impounded in 1990.

(Currently 15% capacity remaining , 25% a year ago)

Assuming O.H Ivie dries up in the next year or two the life of this Reservoir was 22-24 years. What is the average life span of a reservoir in Texas? How many millions of dollars were put into Ivie for it to only last 20 something years. Seems like a failure of a project.

OC Fisher lasted 58 years, with the last 10 or so being completely worthless for sport fishing. What other large resevoirs can you think of that have gone dry?

Ivie wasn't built for fishing it was built for water capacity

How bad would west Texas be if they didn't have it

If it dried up, wouldn't it be a failure at that also???

Looks like we'll see in a few years. Going to be interested to see how west Texas survives the next 50-100 years with even less rain than they've had, which seems to be the trend. Especially when the Ogallala finally runs dry.

Actually it would have done its job at adding to the water supply

How is it a failure, Dan? Can't control mother nature. That is an semi-arid to arid region.

How old is Caddo Lake? Toledo? Rayburn? You get the point. Building reservoirs in West and South Texas is a gamble but has to be done to keep up with growth, or to help stimulate it. If they dry up, they dry up.

Building pipelines from areas with more average rainfall to carry water to the arid regions is cost-prohibitive.

That's something else I've wondered about. At what point would the cost of relatively short-lived reservoirs and city managers trying to please hundreds of thousands of angry residents outweigh the cost of building a massive pipeline system from the Mississippi or other major river systems to convey extra flood waters to reservoirs in dryer climates. I'm sure back in the day everyone said a railroad system spanning the entire country was ridiculous and too expensive. Turned out to be a major milestone in our history.

Amistad is 150 miles to the Concho river in San Angelo. West Texas could pay for it with the oil money. They pump oil then they can pump water.

I believe the pipeline from FT.Stockton to Midland is going to be helping control this but I am not sure...

I believe they are working on a pipeline already from Arizona. Not sure what one desert can give another but that is what I was told.

you all need to research the water wars in cali, theyre trying to kill the delta and pump all that fresh water south. Billions of dollars involved. Texas is next... a few people will become extremely wealthy screwing others.

84' low

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/recreational/lakes/spence/

Yikes

A couple of things one they did not put Midland on water rations till last summer from I was told. I would also say that it is easier to pump fluid down hill then up and oil makes enough money to pay for the pumping. I think most people would be surprise to find out how much it would cost to pump water for long distance. I would think that if water price went up to .50 to a 1.00 a gallion because of sales and pumping people could not afford it any way. Yes it can be done but at what cost. I would also ask were are you going to get the water. The closes place is the Rockies and they are already fighting over that water. The next big place would be the Missippi river to get that much water it would have to start from up north to get enough down hill so that you would not have to pump to make a different. The cost would be huge if you could get the land to put the pipe line on.