Come on in the water's fine.
River on the rise
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Residents and visitors enjoying the Guadalupe River this Fourth of July can thank a city more than 100 miles away.
Suffering from extreme drought, the city of Victoria requested additional water be released from Canyon Lake beginning Tuesday — inadvertently boosting local flows on the Guadalupe just in time for the busy holiday weekend.
“The Fourth of July has always been a pretty big weekend with a number of visitors coming to New Braunfels,” Mayor Bruce Boyer said. “This should allow our visitors to enjoy two venues, the Comal and the Guadalupe, over the holiday.”
Like many cities downstream, Victoria relies on the Guadalupe as its primary water source.
It, like New Braunfels and Comal County, has been coping with a long period of extreme drought. As a result, the city requested the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority release an additional 600 acre-feet of water out of Canyon Lake during a five- to six-day period to meet its supply demands.
“The river is very low in Victoria, as it is throughout all of the Guadalupe River Basin,” Victoria Public Works Director Lynn Short said. “This release is going to help us make it through a very difficult period.”
It could also help solve what might have been a potential overcrowding problem on the Comal River this Independence Day.
With flows so low on the Guadalupe River this summer, tubers and other river visitors primarily had been flocking to the Comal to get out of the Texas heat. With the release doubling from 60 cubic feet per second to 125 cfs during the weekend, local officials said the Guadalupe should now be able to help the Comal accommodate the Fourth of July tourism rush.
“That’ll be the highest flow that we’ve had all year,” Boyer said. “Hopefully that will make a difference on where people choose to float.”
The additional release will drop water levels at Canyon Lake faster during the next week.
The lake is already at historically low levels with the water line at 895 mean feet above sea level on Tuesday — 14 feet below normal. But while it could continue to sink without significant rain, GBRA General Manager Bill West said the lake itself essentially was intended as a large storage unit to assist cities downstream in situations like these.
“It’s doing its job,” West said.
While unexpected, Comal County Judge Danny Scheel said the request from downstream couldn’t have come at a better time.
“This will allow us to have both of our rivers open and allow everybody to have a great weekend,” he said.
