Vernon Hits Water Level Lows
By: Lindsey Wopschall
Updated: March 19, 2013
As
the drought goes on day after day, week after week and month after
month records are being set all across Texoma
and the state.
And even in areas where people consider themselves lucky to have underground sources of water, things are not looking good.
Water, whether from above, the ground or underneath the ground, its become the areas most valued and protected resource.
"If you look all across West Texas if you look at reservoir levels or aquifer levels I think it is a concern particularly all across West Texas," said Jeff Bearden, Vernon's Mayor.
Vernon and many counties and cities in the western part of Texoma depend entirely on underground water sources.
And their wells, just like the lakes, are falling to new lows, record low levels in fact.
Most are now three feet below their average.
And city officials say that's two feet lower than where they were last year at this time.
Vernon and many other cities pump water the Seymour aquifer, which is underneath 20 counties.
The aquifer is made up of underground lakes created through thousands and thousands of years of water seeping into in gravel, sand and silt- clay formations.
Ninty percent of that water is used for irrigation and the rest is primarily used for municipal use, such as for the residents in Vernon who are currently in stage 2 drought restrictions.
But those restrictions could soon become more severe.
"There is no question that if the drought doesn't break we will be looking to go to stage 3 and possibly beyond that," said Bearden.
So even those sitting over huge underground lakes must look to the skies and pray for rain, lots of rain.
While
Vernon
officials have been asking residents to conserve throughout the
drought they also ask residents to use even more care tomorrow.
The
public works division will be performing a scheduled repair on
several water leaks on a main transmission line.
They'll begin their work tomorrow morning at 3 a.m. And will work on it for about 24 hours and officials say it's critical for Vernon residents to conserve during those repairs.
