Fraser, others push for drought order

November 13, 2012, 9:00 pm by James Walker

FREDERICKSBURG — Highland Lakes citizens and officials turned out in large numbers Tuesday to urge the Lower Colorado River Authority’s board of directors to protect and preserve essential drinking and household water in the lakes by keeping an emergency drought protection provision order in place for another year.

State Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, went further, telling the directors he considers them in violation of their adjudicated operating permit and putting them on notice that he plans to introduce a bill in next year’s legislative session that will strengthen the requirement that LCRA’s firm water customers’ needs remain protected and assured before water is shipped from the lakes to downstream rice farmers.

Fraser took issue with an LCRA staff recommendation that a proposed new emergency drought order take effect when the combined storage of reservoirs Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis reaches 750,000 acre feet, which is 100,000 acre feet lower than the cut-off point in the current emergency order.

The 750,000 acre feet cut-off is flawed, said Fraser, who is the chairman of the Texas Senate’s Natural Resources Committee.

For more of this story see Wednesday's Burnet Bulletin or Llano County Journal.