Water Works

City keeping tabs on water supply

By David Bowser
Correspondent

Amarillo has enough water to last between 170 and 230 years, depending upon population and demand growth, but in a semi-arid region every drop of water counts.

In a state of the water presentation this week, Amarillo City Manager Alan Taylor said Amarillo has accomplished more with its voluntary conservation program than other cities around the state with mandatory rationing and mandatory water restrictions.

Assistant City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said that even though the population of Amarillo has continued to grow, total water usage has gone down.

"We're averaging about a four percent per year decline per capita water use in Amarillo," Atkinson said, "even factoring in the dry year of 2006."

The goal of this year's Every Drop Counts water conservation program is to lower that by five percent.

Daily water use in Amarillo last year averaged a little over 41 million gallons. For 2007, the city used just under 15 billion gallons of water for the year.

"That was almost a 14 percent reduction from where we stood in 2006," Atkinson said.

Water usage spiked in 2006, a dry year in the Texas Panhandle, and the city instituted its Every Drop Counts program. That program was carried over in 2007 and now into 2008.

"We do think we increased public awareness of water conservation," Atkinson said.

Over half the water used in Amarillo goes for residential use. Amarillo reports a little over 67,000 water hookups in the city.

"To get that water to the folks," Atkinson said, "we run over 1,000 miles of underground pipe."

Despite concerns nationally over water quality, Atkinson said that the water Amarillo draws on is extremely high quality.

"It's chlorinated either at the well head or at a pump station," Atkinson said. "That's it."

The vast majority of the water flowing through Amarillo today is well water, he said.

"It's very good water," he said. "It's very clean water."

The water in the city's waste water system is settled, filtered, ionized and pumped back into the system.

Atkinson said the city has a complete environment laboratory that can run almost any test possible on water quality.

"We do that on a daily basis," Atkinson said.

While the city's water system has a capacity of about 122 million gallons a day. Last year, the peak amount of water they moved was about 74 million gallons, or about 60 percent of what they could do.
The water going into the system comes from the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, Amarillo's Randall County well field and the city's Carson County well field.

The city also has water rights in Hartley, Roberts and Potter County. The Potter County well field is being developed. The others are being held for future development.

In addition, Atkinson said the Randall County well field, the oldest in the system, is being expanded by tapping the Dockum Aquifer, which lies beneath the Ogallala Aquifer that provides most of the area's water. The Randall County well field has been producing for about 80 years now.

"That was a really good investment that the city made then," Atkinson said.

About 24 percent of Amarillo's water comes from Lake Meredith through the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority.

"Even with the conditions of the lake," Atkinson said, "it is a very important part, not only of our system, but of the other 10 member cities."

CRMWA also provides about 38 percent of Amarillo's water from their Roberts County well field.

"Combined, the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority will bring us about 62 percent of the water we need," Atkinson said.

The remainder will be supplied by Amarillo's well fields.

"Amarillo has traditionally maintained a very substantial capacity of local wells," Atkinson said, "and we continue to do so."

The Randall County well field provides six percent of the city's needs. Most of the water from the Randall County well field is pumped in the summer and at peak periods.

The Carson County well field, built in the 1950s, provides about 37 percent of the city's water.

"The total groundwater reserves for the City of Amarillo is roughly 262,000 acres of water rights," Atkinson said.

Only about 16,000 acres of that has been developed.

"We are probably one of the top three groundwater owners in the State of Texas," Atkinson said.

In addition to that, Atkinson said that of CRMWA's 265,000 acres of water rights in Roberts County, less than 10 percent is developed.
While there appears to be plenty of groundwater available at the moment, Atkinson admitted that groundwater is a finite resource.

The really good news, Atkinson said, is that the 170 to 230 years of water reserves that the city has does not include the one renewable water resource in the region, Lake Meredith.

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Posted: March 13, 2008