New Calculation on When Travis County Runs Dry

Central Texas prairie after 8 years of the most severe drought in recorded history.
LEVELAND

The NCRA (North Colorado River Authority) posts, continue to be under Governor Perry's thumb, and preposterous numbers that they post on the official State web site, become more absurd by the day.  There are some good scientists working for the NCRA, but they are restrained from getting anywhere close to saying the truth "Austin is at great risk for running dry", is painfully restrained because if they do they will loose their jobs.  Perry fired Neal Wilkins, Phd (A&M Wildlife Environment and one of the most respected land mangers in the country, check his pedigree) last year on June 29th when he dared to do the right thing by recommending dramatic cutbacks on our use of water and electricity.  He recommendations we never made public and Wilkin's was fired by Perry the same day.  Wilkin's say it coming and was working at a private willdlife preserve in Corpus Christi within a monthe.  He was the chairman of the Texas Water Commission and a very effective in that position.  His loss was a great loss of Texas in this time of unprecidented drought.  But Perry does not care what happens to the people of Travis County.  Business in the county is just as stupid as everyone else, builders are still putting up new housing and new everything everywhere one looks all across the county.

The NCRA keeps focusing on the drought of record, the 1951 drought, and the 600,000 acre feet record low recorded then.  But this comparison is absurd.  In 1950 Austin’s population was 132,000.  The current population is 843,000, a 6.38 times increase, and water usage per capital was much lower that today's 168 gallons per person/day, and we didn't have water hog industries like chip fabrication plants. So even with a record low 600,000 acre-feet, Austin was still years away from running dry.  Our yearly usage is 400,000 acre-feet, and even if we ignore the higher usage per person and our water hog industries, the folks in 1951 used 1/6.38 times as much water, or 62,700 acre-feet per year.  Dividing the 600,000 acre-feet historical low by 62,700 gives 9.57 years until the would have run dry.  Figure in the much lower usage per person and the water hog industries, the actual number was close to 20 years before the would run dry.

Today is TOTALLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCE.  The governments posting now has our reservoirs at 35% full after the recent mid October rains, but one of the two reservoirs has been visibly empty for a year and a half.  So even if they are telling the truth about Lake Buchanan, there cannot possibly be but half that amount.  Yes, Buchanan holds more water that Travis, but their inflow areas are about the same size so they both suffer or benefit from decreased inflows or increased inflows about the same. January through September, the inflow were only 13% of normal, almost as low as the record 2011 of 11% of normal.  So the idea that Buchanan has not lost water as our usage remains the same, and FOR AT LEAST 18 MONTHS BUCHANAN HAS BEEN THE ONLY RESERVOIR TO DRAW WATER FROM, since Travis is empty, is absurd.  You think the same government that tells us the bald face lie that Travis is 30% of capacity, is going to tell the truth about Buchanin???The Perry administration is either a bunch of fools or they are playing us for a bunch of fools. Matters not, the raw truth of the numbers is the same.

Since, the most water that we can posssible have in reserve is 700,000 acre-feet (today's current lie); half of that is 350,000 acre-feet.  Less that one years average usage, which is going up and there is no sign anywhere of any conservation to counter that. In fact, with people still moving here by the tens of thousands every year (2011 had 26,000 people move into Travis County)  housing is being built as fast as the developers can slap it together.  There is also no effort by any level of government to enforce state laws dictating conservation measures.

Now if there is only 60% of what the government says, not a far fetched deception for a government that says an empty pit is 30% full, that means that there 0.60 x 350,000 = 210,000 acre-feet.  This is only 6 months of water before we run dry.  Considering the bottom 10% is too full of sediment to be useable, the number drops to less than 6 mos.  Not even enough time to plan an orderly migration, IF ANY ORGANIZATION SHOWED ANY INTEREST IN DOING THAT, WHICH THEY DON'T.  NOT A GOVERNMENT AGENCY AT ANY LEVEL HAS ANY PLAN, OR EVEN A PLAN TO MAKE A PLAN AT THE PRESENT. So, it's every citizen for himself, which will mean a panic sickened anarchy when we suddenly run dry.

I see neighbors installing solar panels; but those are near useless in the scenario I describe.

Cruz Racism and th Catholic Church

Response to a Supporter of Congressman Cruz’s Irrational Opposition to Obamacare

Including the history of racism and the Catholic Church

October 22, 2013

Of course we all have to wait for the "results". But if you want to have a discussion on this forum, facts are what count. Otherwise, is degenerates into a matter of "opinions", which any one is entitled to, but they mean nothing. An overt racist can have an Opinion that because Obama is half black, which only means that half of his genes are more recently from Africa. His ancestors were probably captured in some tribal warfare and sold to white men on the coast, as slaves that made plantation farming possible. The white half of Obama's genes also came from Africa, but much longer ago that his ancestors in northern developed an adaptation to the greatly decreased amount of sun in that environment, and lost the pigment in their shin. This has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by science in several different disciplines. The only people who don't "believe" in this science are the uneducated or religious fanatics who pick some passage in the Bible, written by a committee in the Catholic Church 700 years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The Roman Catholics (Roman because the Bible, as un holy as a comment can get, was written in Rome), were already consumed with politics and control of other people, they used the carrot of the few real teachings of Jesus that had survived 700 years of word of mouth passage from group to group of early Christians, were used to fabricate "rules" for behavior, that allowed the Church to control people. Like if you didn't "tithe" (give money to the church) you were condemned as not a true believer and chastised. Of course, those with other religious groups like the Muslims and Jews were caste as so evil, it justified their being killed. Interesting, since Jesus never even hinted at such a practice. Quit the opposite, he taught tolerance and forgiveness. How the Catholic church kept Europeans under their thumb with such a self contradictory mish mash of ideas is one of the wonders on Western civilization. The answer is simple, sociopaths gained control of the church early on, and had no qualms about using the threat of death to keep people quiet and in line. Mass slaughter of Muslims during the "Crusades", served as reminder as to what happens to non believers. Suppression of new thought, or questioning the authority of the Catholic Church, cost man a brilliant men and women their lives. Early science was done and secret, and Geniuses like Leonardi de Vinchi, whose work only survived because he lied about his true beliefs to the powers in the Vatican.

The control and suppression tactic reached it’s peak during the Spanish Inquisition, in which for the first time a Church/Government used a system of spies and encouraged and rewarded people for turning in their neighbors as being “closet” Jews. Anyone accused was tortured to death.  Many innocent people were killed in the cruel and  macabre manner imaginable. Ironically, the Spanish Inquisition ended Spain’s position as a world power, because as the Jews fled, they took with them the scientific innovations in navigation and military tactics that had made a power in an era ruled by the rulers of the seas.  Soon, the English destroyed the Spanish Armada, with smaller more maneuverable ships with more accurate canons.  Concurrently, the Spanish economy went into decline, due to the absence of the Jewish merchants and bankers.

Freshman Congrewwman Cruz a Loud Mouthed Blowhard

Freshman US Congressman Cruz

This man was chiefly responsible for sending the world financial markets into a panic for fear that we were going to default on our loans.  His reason: he doesn't want health care distributed more fairly in this country.  Simply put, the rich get the best care in the world, and every one else get a watered down version of we are capable of.  The less money you have, the more watered down your care gets.  In addition, even though the lower your economic class, and get watered down care, it costs the rest of us more.  ER visits are 5-10x what office calls cost for the same care.  Hospitals corporations, take their profits (30%!) off the top and spend what's left on care.  So how do they make up for the huge losses they rack up for having and ER and running it in a responsible way?  By jacking up the prices of procedures that are more profitable, and those who have "good insurance" pay for in the form of increased premiums.  Obamacare will save money, not "ruin the economy" which is the latest false claim by FOX and other media owned by the super rich like Rupert Murdock.  Don't tell me to get my facts straight---I am a retired physician, an insider who knows exactly how the system works are over 30 years of practice.  You neo-con are just plain wrong about Obamacare.  To use something good for the country to blackmail the Obama Administration's plans and intimidate those who support it, to the point of shutting down the government and threatening the international money markets, is morally and ethically indefensible.

The final assessment is that Mr. Cruz can make a lot of noise about issues that he knows little about, and has given little thought to the ramifications for US citizens or the rest of the world.  His knowledge is a mile wide and a quarter of an inch deep.  We cannot afford this type of man making decisions for this country.

Again the Rain Pattern Shows Why of Reservoirs Decline

Image taken today, October 20,2013, in my back yard.  One week after a day of 3-4 inches of rain.

This  image was taken today in our back yard: dry cracking soil just one week after we received 3-4 inches of rain, the hill country water sheds 2-3 inches,and Austin 4-5inches.  This is why the rain pattern of 2013 has produced inflows almost as low as 2011 which was by far the lowest on record, which was a record shattering 10% of normal.  last Sundays copious amount of rain in some areas of central Texas put very little water into the reservoirs, one foot to be precise.(it would take 260 consecutive days to get Lake Travis (an empty pit as viewed from the highway), since the official government web site has been at 30% full for 2 years. This has been the pattern all of 2013 and clearly illustrates why we keep loosing ground (pun intended) on of our water supply. This is to illustrate how fast the top soil dries out so rapidly (one week and the temperatures are now quite moderate), and now the first inch of rain into the watershed will be absorbed by the parched top soil when the next storm front comes through.

If the Perry Government is willing to post a bold faced like and citizens can see is zero as 260 feet of water, would it not be reasonable to speculate the Lake Buchanan (the dam on the Colorado upstream rom Travis) has only 50% of what they claim?  Or 60% or 70%?.  Calculating the full Government amount 620,000 acre-feet, by our very consistent yearly usage of 400,000 acre feet, leaves us with only 14 months until we run dry.  If one uses the 50% of what is stated for Buchanan, gives a terrifying 2-3 months before we run dry.  The take home message, is that catastrophic event is coming and we little about when, because of the governments intentional deception.

Austin Dry in as Little as 2 Months New Calculation

Why Our Conservation Schedules Were Too Little & Too Late

October 6, 2013

The parched earth after record 8 year droughtE

Discounting Gov. Perry’s bizarre attitudes and inaction with regard to the drought, our “pre determined trigger points” for different levels of conservation were based on the worst drought on record in 1951.  At that time Austin’s population was 132,000.  The current population is 843,000, a 6.38 times increase.  In addition, there were no water hungry industries, like the semiconductor chip fabs that inhabit Austin now.  A study in the late 2000’s revealed that an average chip fab plant used enough water to supply a city of 50,000 people.  Austin has 14 of these plants, which consume even more water than the plant that was studied, because the wafer size was 6”, and now the standard is 8”.  The amount of water needed to rinse a wafer increases exponentially, not linearly.  But for the purposes of this essay, I will use the 50,000 people per plant estimate, so the chip fabs add 14 x 50,000, or 700,000 people.  That makes Austin functional population around 1.5 million.

With lake reservoirs at about the same level in 1951 as now, 600,000 acre/feet, with only 132,000 people, the threat of running dry was distant.  People used less water then than now, but for simplicity, I will use the current outrageous usage of 168 gallons/per person per day. So, the extra  hypothetical extra 700,000 people use 168 gallons/per/capita/day = 700,000 x 0.325 = 227,000 acre-feet. (The conversion from gallons to acre feet is 1.0 million acre-feet = 0.325 gallons.)  Therefore, the total usage per day is  the total of the actual number of people plus that used by the additional usage by the hypothetical people represented by the extra 227,000 acre-feet per day.

Another factor to be considered is that the two reservoirs, are the only source of water for not only Austin, but the additional people that have filled up Travis county as suburbs that didn’t exist in 1950.  The current data indicates that there are 1.7 million people in the county.  Almost as many people in the county outside the Austin city limits, as there are in within the city.  Therefore, the total number of people dependent of the two reservoirs, is the previous calculation including the hypothetical people, plus 1.7 million less 843,000, or 857,000 added to the 1.7 million = 2.58 million.

Today the 2.58 million times the daily usage of 227,000 acre-feet per day of usage = 5.85 million acre feet/day, divided by 30 days per month resulting in only 1.95 months until we run dry. 

Had the trigger point estimates took into account the population increase we should have been at level 3 conservation in 2009, and level 4 early in 2011.  If those conservation measures were carried out, we would not be in the critical state we face today. With only about 14 months if you believe the State web site which says that we have 600,000 acre feet, and states that lake Travis is 30% full (which would be 260 feet of water, when it has been a plainly visible empty pit for almost 2 years.  So, with that bold face lie to foster confidence that lake Buchanan has what the web site states, my guess (and it is just a guess because the real data is no where to be found) that Buchanan has only 50% of the stated value.  That would give Austin only 4 months until we run dry.  Keep in mind that the inflows for 2013 have been almost as low as 2013, or about 30% of normal.  That amount is neutralized by loss to evaporation and the fact that 10% of the water at the bottom is unusable because of sediment.  The forecasters including all of the meteorologists and climatologists see no change in the near future (up to 5 years) so we are using up a fixed amount of water.

Morris Creedon-McVean

New Estimate on When We May Run Dry

Why Our Conservation Schedules Were Too Little & Too Late

October 6, 2013

parched cracked soil from prolonged drought

 Discounting Gov. Perry’s bizarre attitudes and inaction with regard to the drought, our “pre determined trigger points” for different levels of conservation were based on the worst drought on record in 1951.  At that time Austin’s population was 132,000.  The current population is 843,000, a 6.38 times increase.  In addition, there were no water hungry industries, like the semiconductor chip fabs that inhabit Austin now.  A study in the late 2000’s revealed that an average chip fab plant used enough water to supply a city of 50,000 people.  Austin has 14 of these plants, which consume even more water than the plant that was studied, because the wafer size was 6”, and now the standard is 8”.  The amount of water needed to rinse a wafer increases exponentially, not linearly.  But for the purposes of this essay, I will use the 50,000 people per plant estimate, so the chip fabs add 14 x 50,000, or 700,000 people.  That makes Austin functional population around 1.5 million.

With lake reservoirs at about the same level in 1951 as now, 600,000 acre/feet, with only 132,000 people, the threat of running dry was distant.  People used less water then than now, but for simplicity, I will use the current outrageous usage of 168 gallons/per person per day. So, the extra  hypothetical extra 700,000 people use 168 gallons/per/capita/day = 700,000 x 0.325 = 227,000 acre-feet. (The conversion from gallons to acre feet is 1.0 million acre-feet = 0.325 gallons.)  Therefore, the total usage per day is  the total of the actual number of people plus that used by the additional usage by the hypothetical people represented by the extra 227,000 acre-feet per day.

Another factor to be considered is that the two reservoirs, are the only source of water for not only Austin, but the additional people that have filled up Travis county as suburbs that didn’t exist in 1950.  The current data indicates that there are 1.7 million people in the county.  Almost as many people in the county outside the Austin city limits, as there are in within the city.  Therefore, the total number of people dependent of the two reservoirs, is the previous calculation including the hypothetical people, plus 1.7 million less 843,000, or 857,000 added to the 1.7 million = 2.58 million.

Today the 2.58 million times the daily usage of 227,000 acre-feet per day of usage = 5.85 million acre feet/day, divided by 30 days per month resulting in only 1.95 months until we run dry. As far as inflows are concerned, 2013, the inflows are almost as low as 2011.  That year the record for inflows was shattered as the inflows were only 10% of normal.  That small amount of water added to our reservoirs is negated by evaporation, which is the same case this year.  Also keep in mind that the bottom 10% of water in the reservoirs is unusable due to the high rate of sedimentation. So, the water added by nature to the reservoirs in 2011 and 2013 may in fact be negative.  Summary: no inflows and continued high usage exacerbated by a high immigration rate, equals sucking the reservoirs dry.  Without a dramatic change in the weather pattern, which is not predicted by anyone who studies weather, we will run out of water.  The only question is when.  And a precise calculation is difficult due to the government's obfuscation of the data.

Had the trigger point estimates took into account the population increase we should have been at level 3 conservation in 2009, and level 4 early in 2011.  If those conservation measures were carried out, we would not be in the critical state we face today. With only about 14 months if you believe the State web site which says that we have 600,000 acre feet, and states that lake Travis is 30% full (which would be 260 feet of water, when it has been a plainly visible empty pit for almost 2 years.  So, with that bold face lie to foster confidence that lake Buchanan has what the web site states, my guess (and it is just a guess because the real data is no where to be found) that Buchanan has only 50% of the stated value.  That would give Austin only 4 months until we run dry.  Keep in mind that the inflows for 2013 have been almost as low as 2013, or about 30% of normal.  That amount is neutralized by loss to evaporation and the fact that 10% of the water at the bottom is unusable because of sediment.  The forecasters including all of the meteorologists and climatologists see no change in the near future (up to 5 years) so we are using up a fixed amount of water.

The point of this essay is not to predict the exact date of the catastrophic event of "running dry", but point out that there a variety of ways to prove that the government's deceit about the seriousness of the drought if very serious and dangerous.  Keeping such data as the amount of water in our reservoirs amounts to "secret government" in an (theoretically) open society.  There is clearly a nefarious intent by the perpetrators of this deceit, Gov. Perry and his supporters, which also kept secret.  Given the fact that a sudden absence of water and electricity (electrical power cannot be generated without large amounts of water for cooling the steam turbines) in a county of 1.7 million people accustomed to a very orderly life will be catastrophic and thousands will perish in the anarchy which will result.  In my mind knowingly withholding the truth about the drought constitutes manslaughter, and the responsible people should be charged, tried and punished.

Morris Creedon-McVean