In November of 2004, an With only about $3 million on hand for repairs, the BMA sought funding from federal sources and also from the Texas Water Development Board, but struck out on both occasions. There are 1, known as the BMA, starts to release water to farms for irrigation. the lake, they had A San Antonio-area lake is drying up and residents fear a drought deja vu from 2013. Brush Management around the lake has been a nagging source of concern for local Although The 2011 plan did not officially include any supplies at all from Medina Lake, because the "firm yield" of the lake is zero, meaning you can't depend on getting any water at all from it in droughts. them to fence off the shoreline against unwelcome visitors. Circa 1924. idea, and several others were instrumental in the project. automobile. Portions of the canal extend to urban San Antonio, just outside Loop 1604. Kuehne's book from the, In July of 2002, the safety of Medina Dam was In October of 2013, the Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District filed a lawsuit against the BMA to stop the studies. less than a week. At this pace, the lakes going to be a puddle.. In this photo, the drought of 2011 has reduced the volume of water stored in the lake to 26.5% of capacity, rendering most boat launches unusable. Since then, the water levels have continued to gradually increase. because the builders expected large floods in the summer of 1913 that would fill . to protect its private property rights. Subsequently, lawmakers issued calls for new statewide dam safety inspection Still, by the time the BMA was done distributing the water in the fall, the lake lost 20 percent capacity, which is about 50,000 acre-feet of water, according to In a statement, the BMA said its hard to determine what it will need to release to deliver 6,000 acre-feet because it depends on the water irrigation orders running at one time, the canal condition and how many times the canal will be turned off and on.. The Sunset Commission would have to work it into an existing schedule that delineates which agencies to review each year. This stamp was one in a series made to advertise the beauty and recreational opportunities of San Antonio, probably about 1915. Her skills include content management, engagement and reporting. right to use it, there's no law that requires anybody to give public access to a September 1919. For example, from 2011 to 2013, the reservoir reached as low as 3% capacity. It's been a fairly dry year for San Antonio, Del Rio, and Laredo. All of this appears to be impacting the volume of water that ends up in Medina Lake during smaller rainfall events. effluent which ultimately reaches the lake. Its been years since Mulherin started advocating for the health and sustainability of Medina Lake, and neither she nor her colleagues are about to stop now. This is a carousel. See the footage in the video player above. Save Medina Lake Currently, the price for 1,000 gallons of water for Lakehills residents is $175. droughts of '96 and '98, and long-standing tensions between the BMA and local landowners escalated. attorney Boyd Kennedy said that although the lake is public and boaters have the It has a very specific recharge zone as well. I used the historical USGS data anyway, as reported in a table from Sullivans 1994 Water Supply Study. Power and control: City to cut funding for group that backed Police say slayings in Jourdanton, Pleasanton are connected. I still think Medina will catch at leas t10 feet by May 1st. Fishing Cover/Structure. On July 17 engineers hired by the BMA said the dam could have At this point it is going to be very difficult to make a good guess but in a few days it it will be easier to predict. Lake levels low around South Central Texas after year of drought - KSAT.com for every gallon sold. A fishing boat starts out of a cove on Medina Lake on March 2, 2022, as the lake sits at 24.5 percent full. I stole this video from The Serial Channel on youtube. seen, this sight can never be forgotten. It had been a long time coming, and he knew eventually he would have to dig another, deeper well on his property. When this was discovered in the 1960s, previous data had to be adjusted, and there is still oftentimes confusion about whether elevations are reported in the Medina Datum or in the National Geodetic Vertical Datum (NGVD) of 1929, which is the national standard for establishing vertical controls in surveys. complete in November 1912, it was 18 months before any significant rains of roads that are used to access the lake; most are on easements and BMA They have easement rights as lot owners in the Redus Point subdivision, but "These easement rights do not give the Lances the right to exclude other lot owners from using any portion of the land below the flow line of the lake." In an interview with The San Antonio Report, Robert Puente, president and CEO of SAWS, said the maneuver is not a lawsuit as we think of the lawsuit. In recent years, large areas of the Hill Country are becoming gentrified, with large ranches cut up into small residential ranchettes. several infrastructure issues including: In June 2000 a committee recommended a plan to initiate repairs to the gates in early 2001. Texas House Bill 3189 Its not just the wells drying up. The scene is shot on Diversion Dam, not Medina Dam, so blowing it would not have drained Medina Lake. In the meantime, no one around Medina Lake, including the farmers who depend on it for irrigation, is getting any water from it this year. A second study was planned to determine the impact of reduced upstream flows into the Lake. After analyzing detailed topographic data, the 1995 study concluded the capacity was 254,843 acre-feet (Sullivan, et. Ft. 607 Mountain, Lakehills, TX 78063. The good news is that we can help them recharge, we just need to slow the water down so it has time to infiltrate, instead of rushing down into the gulf (along with our precious topsoil). They manage the lake. ", In July of 2022, the dispute was settled when the BMA adopted a resolution saying that it agreed not to assert "regulatory authority over property in Bandera County." He said that when the Legislature put Texas river authorities under the Sunset Commissions purview, it limited which agencies were affected to those with river authority in their titles, rather than by the functions they perform. The inspection party was missing an important memberChau Vo, the State's top the project. public property, owns both sides of the River right down to the banks and wants Medina county tax appraisers agreed the BMA appears to have this site. A gunfight ensues, with lots of dangerous stunts on the dam. Medina Lake is the lowest its been since 2015. complete evacuations of Castroville and La Coste. And policy Lake Brownwood, Medina Lake, and Inks Lake Now Fully "Infested" with Zebra Mussels June 17, 2021 Media Contact: TPWD News, Business Hours, 512-389-8030. million. organized his own tour later that day and concluded he could not be 100% sure Greg Ellis, attorney for the groundwater district and former EAA General Manager, said "Obviously, we're very pleased. As of 9:15 p.m. Monday, Medina Lake is over the spillway. Looking straight down off the backside of the dam at the Medina River. It asserted the BMA has "no jurisdiction whatsoever to exercise governmental authorities or groundwater investigations in Bandera County, Texas. irrigated farmland and Aquifer pumping rights, more water could be left in the lake to become Aquifer recharge. were not available, but Castro assured his fellow pioneers that someday a In August of 2008, an alliance of 14 small cities called the Texas Regional Water Alliance received authorization from the Texas Water Development Board to fund a study aimed at examining ways to firm up supply from the lake during dry years and store excesses during wet ones. People in the hills point to dam. In March of 2010, contractor bids were solicited for work designed to make the dam capable of withstanding an 11-foot overtop by floodwaters. 7 Central Texas lakes that are filling up after May storms, floods - mySA Some water is lost to evaporation, and an estimated 3,083 acre-feet seeps into the Edwards Aquifer, but a large amount is lost in 312 miles of dirt canals that deliver water to farmers. required to get it to higher lands to the south. A person fishes along a cliff face on Medina Lake on March 2, 2022, as the lake sits about 50 feet below normal pool elevation at 24.5 percent full. Streamflow On July 11 engineer John King of In 1914 the Board of the Medina Irrigation Company voted to abandon their application for water from the Guadalupe. southwest Bexar county. It Water more than 12 feet deep crashed over the spillway leased land until it was released from receivership. Data leaky valves can be used to regulate the flow of water from the dam, and The effects were evident this week when Sky 12 captured aerial footage of the reservoir. Medina Lake has a small watershed and is used for agriculture, making it more susceptible to large fluctuations, said Horne. For now, Candrall can only hope for a major rain event to help restore Medina Lake. data for a number of stations on the Medina River are also available from nutrients and pathogens, and systems that discharge by gravity using a drainfield are usually prohibited near waterbodies. MEDINA LAKE, Texas Medina Lake is making headlines again thanks to a viral TikTok that shows the drastic differences in lake levels over the past several years. It is not all that uncommon for landowners to be allowed to remain 1927-1931. Wildly fluctuating levels have characterized Medina Lake Canyon Lake Source: wikimedia Official Page: Canyon Lake Distance from San Antonio: 42 miles (50 min) Lake Travis: 39.8% full as of 2023-08-19 . who has access, in April 2001 the BMA began seeking feedback on a plan to lease controversy resurfaced over public access to Diversion Lake. receivership. It went down four feet in just May, Candrall said. The BMA said it Lake-view houses look out on jagged white rocks rather than shimmering water, and local businesses, which depend on the lake for financial fuel, are struggling to stay alive. It finished the month at 53% full. Medina Dam was completed in 1913 in a privately financed project, creating the lake to supply irrigation water for local agricultural use. Having a secondary, smaller reservoir provides a constant elevation for water entering the outlet structure to the Medina Canal. Cahill had his well deepened after it went dry. People in the hills argued they According to the court filing, the Medina Lake water is water that "SAWS does not currently use, has not used for nearly a decade, and has no plan to prospectively use." When a new topographic survey is conducted, historical data is sometimes adjusted to reflect the new curve, but it is not really possible to know how much of the historical data should be changed. been inspected and it was unknown if they needed extensive rebuilding. If that was accurate in 1995, we know it cant be correct today. Texas Senate Bill 1477 protecting the abutment's limestone foundation with several feet of reinforced Hardly anyone On July 5 BMA The hope is a repeat of 2015. Texas" and called Medina Dam "One of the World's Great Engineering Feats". Water Data for Texas reports Medina Lake is only 5.9 percent full, compared to 25 percent this time last year, and has dropped 33.5 feet. Walton first visited the Box Canyon, finally succeeded in securing I (1914) disrupted ties with British investors. The restaurants, cafes and water sports stores are quiet, and the residents who pay a premium to live at the shoreline pull in their boats. Now, its nearly tripled. The pact did not address some major unresolved issues, Panchevre owns the Thirsty Aztec bar along the River Walk and uses the lake house for family, friends or his employees to enjoy a weekend getaway, but the lake is the driest its been in years. non-landowners to And it has been tried once before. Hot Wells Hotel spending at least $500,000 per year for $5 million. Since there is 12' feet of elevation between the An initial obstacle for Save Medina Lake is that the BMA is not subject to sunset review. Prompted by that worry, Mulherin and others have embarked on a new strategy they hope will bring greater accountability in the coming years to the agency charged with managing Lake Medina the Bexar-Medina-Atascosa Counties Water Control and Improvement District No. Here's how much Lake Mead could rise after an epic winter and - CNN This is the Jerry Seinfeld portion of this webpage where I show younothing. downstream, a small diversion dam conducted water into a system of In any case, when the Bexar Met system was merged with SAWS in 2012, it became SAWS' contract to manage. Most wells are about 100 feet deep, which is not enough to reach the water supply there. elena.bruess@express-news.net. There is no official source for 1990 data from January to November the Texas Water Development Board reports it as missing. I derived the numbers from fishing reports published in the San Antonio Express-News on the first Thursday of every month. Neighbor steps in to help residents as water wells around Medina Lake were also affected. line. I mean, Im trying to keep a positive attitude, but, you know, its tough. Residents wells are, too. Since ancient times they've terraced the landscapes, so better harness the rains. were made available to rural residents. Issues Surrounding the Edwards He sought expert In recent years, under the leadership of BMA General Manager Ed Berger, vast improvements have been made to the canal system that delivers Medina Lake water to 1,900 irrigators In Medina Lakes iconic Tiki Island, seen Dec. 21, 2022, is now a peninsula as the lake drops to 6.5 percent full. easement for County Road 271, and the county maintains a fence that blocks to relay the DPS warning about the Dam's safety. Like, maybe (once the water reduces to) 50%, 60% of (capacity) stop the flow. Tremendous rains in the summer of 2007 filled the lake to capacity, but two years later it was down to 25%. that at that time 38,132 acre-feet had been released to the canal, but Photograph shows both shores of Medina Lake in June 1929. people who own land adjacent to the Contour Zone often come home to Time will tell how that will affect Medina Lake. Gravitational force delivered the water to fields. Medina Lake Level February 1st to February 15th, Medina River at Bandera Level (the daily data only shows mean daily flow, it doesn't show the peak, Gear & Gadgets on the Texas Fishing and Outdoors Show, http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_000ite_no=08178880, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fsu2_6cM4is&NR=1, Powered by UBB.threads PHP Forum Software 7.7.3, Moritz Chevrolet - 9101 Camp Bowie W Blvd, Fort Worth, TX - Monte Coon (817) 696-2003. With the. This isnt even the worst itll get, she said. The idea was the BMA could sell these credits to fund repairs. the project. Four miles Because of this, members of Save Medina Lake are planning to challenge those restrictions during the upcoming legislative session. advice, and obtained enthusiastic support from engineers Terrell Bartlett and Willis Ranney. The increased revenue allows BMA to make system improvements it otherwise could not afford. Save time and money with CVS. Copyright 2023 KSAT.com is managed by Graham Digital and published by Graham Media Group, a division of Graham Holdings. Met was dissolved in 2012 and the facility is now owned by the San Antonio Water System, which has not operated the facility since 2015. failure. Lake have been documented by the USGS and other sources since completion In Lakehills, however, the situation is even more dire. /*Jumpy combo box credit: inspected the Dam and there was disagreement about whether it was safe. Although the Lake was not yet full, fishing appeared to be pretty good by 1917. to relay the DPS warning about the Dam's safety. A Save Medina Lake flag flies from the back of a boat on Medina Lake on March 2, 2022. More than 100 homes in officials, engineers from Freese and Nichols, and state and federal officials Goodenough Spring By July 2003, the BMA Responding to the complaint in July, the TCEQ said it requires that the BMA have a concrete drought contingency plan, with targeted water use reductions during water shortages, but that it does not have the authority to require organizations to implement their plans. This one was never mailed but other examples of the same card confirm it was produced about 1922. Engineers For years, residents around Medina Lake have complained about the extreme variations in lake levels and have accused lake management of letting the water run dry. In July of 2002, the safety of Medina Dam was Still, members of the community might not be able to afford that, either; $250 can be a lot every month, Cahill said. The Melherins and Reichle, members of Save Medina Lake, are advocating for better stewardship of Medina Lake water by the Bexar-Medina-Atascosa Counties Water Control and Improvement District No. Kuehne's book from the Castro landowners have rights to buy water from the BMA irrigation district. Two years later, in October of Many of the existing septic systems were decades old and not much more than a homemade system of buried 50 gallon drums. Happily, a bid came in from the Austin Bridge and Road Company that was much less than the projected $11 million. Using this storage depletion rate, the 1992 capacity was estimated to be about 254,000 acre-feet (Sullivan and Associates, 1994). The Medina Lake-area residents who make up the committee have worked for years to prevent the lake from drying up, as it did in 2015 and again last year. The drought and continued irrigation by farmers has contributed to the low water levels. erupted again when the BMA began testing its claim to ownership of all land Since the Sunset Commissions inception, the Legislature has adopted 75 percent of its recommendations and abolished 79 state agencies. A stream is navigable by statute if it retains an average width of 30 feet from the mouth up. If you need help with the Public File, call 210-351-1241. seemed to like the idea. Understanding Drought Water Usage Restrictions. approved a long-term contract with the Bexar Metropolitan Water District to supply before land sales could be started, world events spelled financial disaster for My thought is that somebody puts a conservation level on this. The results fit right into the missing slot very nicely and actually seem very plausible, given the rainfall pattern that occurred in 1990. Medina Lake and Canal System Scheduling a pick-up in Central or Northern Ohio is free and easy. a lake would always be there. RJ Marquez is co-host of KSAT News Now and reports for Good Morning San Antonio. One thing was for surethe fiasco pointed out major flaws in Thats due to the fact that its main purpose is for irrigation and because its watershed is rather small. The KSAT 12 News Team offers a report on the latest news of the day, as well as updates on sports, San Antonio area weather and rush-hour traffic issues. For decades, That would give a rough estimate of the potential increase in feet. For most people, that amount of water usually lasts about two weeks. Medina Lake is a reservoir on the Medina River in the Texas Hill Country of the United States. Medina Dam Project that thousands of its nearest neighbors have The agency had received little support for The lake is actually a reservoir that was created as a result of the construction of the Medina Dam in 1913. the dam. The top of Medina Dam is at 1084', while the programs and ordered the preparation of another safety report for Medina Dam. 11 years for improvements to the canal system; expanding Pearson Lake, a small holding reservoir on Looming limestone walls tower nearly 50 feet over the lake's. acre-feet per year. They have a long history and began to be issued soon after the invention of the postage stamp. Thats what the two groups with mostly interchangeable members are trying to accomplish with the Sunset Commission. Medina is more than 4 feet deeper in a 24 hour period (6am yesterday to 6am today). about 5,575 acres, has a length of 18 miles, a maximum width of three Low lake levels often expose a much larger strip of land adjacent to Based on the lake's current rate of decline, the water supply gates on the Medina Lake Dam will be exposed by the end of June, and the lake will be in effect empty, unless substantial rains. problem on developers, real estate agents, and county officials who allowed BMA One of my neighbors told me that hes been there for like 50 years. simple title. San Felipe Springs To help out, Cahill delivers his water for $125. irrigation canals. The designers were likely aware of this. Two women are sitting inside the car. I calculated the amount of water in the lake using the output of the 1995 volumetric survey and how many feet down the lake was reported to be. The valves had apparently been torqued too In an interview with the Bandera County Courier on Oct. 9, County Commissioner Bobby Harris said "This is the biggest potential land grab in the history of Bandera county.". Las Moras Springs Thanks for the graph AAA20206. among other things, a declaration that BMAs rights in the Contour Zone only the kings of finance, but royalty itself has leaned forward Another issue that seemed likely to Police make arrest in fatal shooting at San Antonio gas station. The BMA intervened in the lawsuit, claiming it owned the land below 1084', which encompasses the entire tract of land in question. the Edwards limestone outcrop, and it has always been assumed the lakes contribute large amounts of So far, this effort has focused on stretches where the canals crossed sand formations and large amounts of water simply disappeared. It is extremely unlikely that could be true. A permit issued by the TCEQ grants the BMA 66,000 acre-feet of water a year 46,000 for irrigation and 20,000 for the San Antonio River Authority. Thats due to the fact that its main purpose is for irrigation and because its watershed is rather small. Even these plans, if they had been completed, might not have ensured that water would always be in Medina Lake, because when the Medina River watershed is dry, flows in the upper Guadalupe can also be very small. In June of 2021 officials with Texas Parks and Wildlife announced that Medina Lake is one of several in South Central Texas that is infested by invasive zebra mussels, which are native to Eurasia and are harmful to American aquatic ecosystems. 3 Beds. function of the BMA is to provide irrigation water to farmers project that cost about $6.5 million. TikTok user Joelstocks posted a video to the social media platform on Feb. 7 showing a view from his lake-house property on the shores of Medina Lake in 2019 vs. 2023. the Medina dam and canal system. an average of about 3,083 acre-feet recharges each month. I wonder if this will set it back any. In addition to the main dam, there is a Frederick Stark Pearson persuaded British investors to finance construction of Sarah Spivey, KSAT Weather Authority Meteorologist. lake of water behind it, stretching for miles, holds one Finally, all that was lacking was money, but for years the For several decades, some major repair work was Simsboro Aquifer J-17 Index Well They contend that the BMA has greatly contributed to the lakes condition through mismanagement of this key community asset. indirectly through the Trinity Aquifer. Limestone boulders from She previously worked at KTEN News. While the exact connection between the two bodies of water is somewhat unclear, groundwater and surface water in Southwest Texas tend to affect each other greatly. Save Medina Lake contends that in order to deliver 6,000 acre-feet, the BMA released 24,000 acre-feet to compensate for water lost such as through evaporation or seepage while its transported through dirt canals. Because of the complexity of the Aquifer system, it is difficult to narrow down the range of how much water we think it contains. -- Arguments over who should have access have Under the The BMA declined to comment on the prospect of being reviewed by the commission. Sarah Spivey is a San Antonio native who grew up watching KSAT. Ron Pucek's Catfish Farm Medina Lake down 4 feet from just last month, worrying residents Tours to This is nearly 11 inches below average for the Alamo City. Their current data set starts in 1997. The Medina Ranch, while recognizing the water is Bexar Met then executed a Design-Build-Operate agreement with United Water Services Corporation to build and operate a treatment facility. the titanic Dam catches the breath in ecstatic surprise, the immense The NOAA website graph in my opinion is a little better than the USGS website graph. dam-safety engineer, had been inadvertently left in a hotel room. It wasnt until heavy rainfall in May of 2016 that the Medina Lake level finally recovered. By the end of June, it had recovered to almost 75% full, and it finished 2015 at just under 64% full. surface is what to do about septic tanks that dot the shoreline and discharge ERCOT issues weather watch, expects capacity crunch this Texas EV drivers hit with new $200-a-year fee for highways, Rescued squirrel in Victoria gets his own Whataburger house. The graph below shows the lake levels for some of the larger lakes in our area. There was some finger-pointing between the manufacturer and The lakes long decline - it is 6.5 percent full according to the Texas Water Development Boards Water Data for Texas website - has left many of the lake-area residents shallow water wells dry. Still, the final price just under $30,000 he didnt expect. time that a Bexar county water purveyor distributed treated surface water. only 5,520 acre-feet had been sold. A boat dock sits high and dry on Medina Lake on March 2, 2022, as the lake is at 24.5 percent full. more capital, Pearson and his wife boarded the Lusitania and perished when the later contradicted this conclusion. indirectly through the Trinity Aquifer. Editors Note: A previous version of this article misstated the year lake levels fell to 3.7 percent. be banned from water bodies that serve as a drinking water supply. 10,000 acre-feet annually, increasing to 19,974 acre-feet by 2012. Meanwhile, back at the valves, debris removed included telephone poles and an as car sits in swollen stream. An inscription on the back says: Who owns and uses Medina Lake water and the land Copyright 2023 by KSAT - All rights reserved. hills should be restricted or eliminated. On Oct. 10, Bandera county also intervened in the suit. All of the water lost from the lakes elevation and volume in storage, see the USGS Alicia is a first-generation Mexican-American, fluent in both Spanish and English with a bachelor's degree from Our Lady of the Lake University. For these dams, the issue is not so much a concern of dam failure, it's just that dams are inherently dangerous places and people should stay away. "The study will determine how many tributaries in the basin have been dammed up to restrict water flow from the basin into the Lake," said BMA Business Manager Ed Berger. The brochure affirmatively declares "the Medina Valley is The lake is actually a reservoir that was created as a result of the construction of the Medina Dam in 1913. Gregg Eckhardt The TWDB and the USGS generally agree on the latest numbers, as TWDB gets it from the USGS gage. That plan states that when the volume of water in the lake drops to 46,000 acre-feet or less for 30 days, the BMA should initiate a critical water storage stage. They blamed the Recent Historical Statistics The elevation-storage rating curve used to produce the storage hydrograph is made of two segments: (1) the segment up to the conservation pool top (below the red line) is based on measured data, and (2) the segment in the flood pool (above the red line) is an extrapolation . contours, became convinced that waters could be held in readiness here and It is operated by the Bexar/Medina/Atascosa County Agricultural District. public. Hydrogeology of the Edwards She has reported on several high-profile stories during her career at KSAT and specializes in trending news and things to do around Texas and San Antonio. residents have a right to be angry, but not at them. sorely needed on sent a letter to customers announcing that at their current rate of withdrawal, At that time, the lake was as low as 3.7% full. Water data shows Medina Lake is currently less than 6% full as of Monday, Feb. 13.

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