FortBendNow.com

Fort Bend County cities and other entities with rights to Brazos River water could see that water flow curtailed or cut off if the drought becomes more severe.

Mark Vickery, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, sent a letter earlier this month to Brazos water rights holders warning them of possible cut-back or suspension of water.

“The lack of significant rainfall in the area and the declining flow of the Brazos River may require action” by the TCEQ “to further curtail surface water diversions for the protection of senior water rights,” Vickery said in the letter.

After more than six weeks of extremely hot, dry weather, the entire state of Texas now is experiencing drought of one degree or another. Fort Bend is among more than 40 counties rated as experiencing exceptional drought.

So far this summer, the drought has caused $3.6 billion in damages to Texas crops and pasture, Texas A&M University agricultural economist Carl Anderson reported on Monday.

The continued dry heat – a 1.75-inch weekend rain shower notwithstanding – has resulted in very low Brazos River levels – less than 10 feet in Richmond on Monday. And even that depth is only being maintained thanks to some releases from upstream reservoirs.

Both Vickery and a TCEQ spokeswoman said the concept of “priority doctrine” governs Brazos River water rights. Basically, that means entities with the oldest contracted water rights get priority over “junior” rights holders.

Among the oldest water-rights holders are agricultural operations. Among the newest are entities such as the cities of Rosenberg and Richmond.

Richmond City Manager Glen Gilmore said those two cities negotiated 50-year Brazos water rights agreements last year.

“And they’re supposed to uphold their contract,” he said of the Brazos River Authority, with whom such agreements are negotiated.

But, TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said, Brazos River “water rights are determined on the basis of who had them first.”

Under the Texas Water Code, seniority governs water rights, regardless of what junior rights holders use their water for.

“The TCEQ has received a priority call on surface water from senior water rights downstream of your diversion point,” Vickery said in his letter. “Many junior water rights on the Brazos River have already reached their permitted flow restrictions and are currently not being allowed to divert any surface water. All approved temporary water rights in the area have also been suspended.”

If the drought persists, Morrow said, further water rights may be suspended.

Ironically, Missouri City, Sugar Land, Richmond and Rosenberg all are required by law to begin converting from well water to surface water, to slow the effects of soil subsidence.

By 2013, Missouri City and Sugar Land must begin using surface water for 30% of their water needs. By 2015, Gilmore said, Rosenberg and Richmond must do the same thing.

All four cities decided to obtain that surface water from the Brazos, and signed contracts giving them water rights.

While local cities are on course to start tapping the Brazos for an increasing slice of their water needs, a top weather expert at Texas A&M University has predicted that this summer’s drought will become a normal and permanent condition.

The result of that confluence of possibilities could bring increasing pressure to bear for a decreasing amount of available Brazos water.

“We’ve abused it so much, we’ve polluted it so much and we’ve wasted it so much, but there’s only a certain amount,” Gilmore said.