TX Rice Farmers May Face 3rd Year Without Irrigation Water; City Water Cuts Also In Play

[hatrack]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas water supplier has scheduled a Tuesday vote on whether to withhold irrigation water from downstream rice farmers for a third consecutive year.

The Lower Colorado River Authority set the vote on a drought-related emergency plan. It would require the authority's two key reservoirs near Austin to have 1.1 million acre-feet of water on March 1 before making any water available to farmers, the Austin American-Statesman reported. That is higher than the 850,000 acre-feet threshold used in the past two years.

Each acre-foot is the amount of water needed to flood an acre to a depth of 1 foot. As of Friday the two reservoirs, Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis, held about two-thirds the water required under the proposed plan. The lakes haven't reached the proposed threshold since July 2011. Texas is one of the largest rice growers in the nation.

The emergency plan also will require Austin and other municipal customers to restrict water use for the first time.

EDIT

http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Texas-rice-farmers-may-go-3rd-year-without-water-4992653.php?cmpid=htx

[phantom power]

1. Rick Perry better step up his sacrifices to the market gods.

[marble falls]

2. Don't fret about the poor little rice farmers. Their last request was to release water for duck.....

hunting on their private property. This is a highly subsidized industry raising rice (and also being paid to not grow rice) in a place that is not a place to grow rice without irrigation. Screw them and their governor Perry. By the way, we've had water restrictions all during this "drought".

[Demeter]

3. What idiot decided to grow rice in a desert?

[Gothmog]

4. Texas is running out of water

This is going to be a major issue