Despite floods, water utility says drought continues

While recent floods and rainfall have increased the combined storage of Austin’s reservoir lakes Travis and Buchanan, Austin Water Utility has cautioned residents not to celebrate just yet. Austin Water Utility Managing Engineer Teresa Lutes told the Water and Wastewater Commission on Wednesday that the lakes had received about 600,000 acre-feet in increased storage as a result of “recent rain events.” According to the Lower Colorado River Authority, as of Monday the combined storage of the two lakes was 1,375,594 acre-feet, or about 69 percent of capacity. One acre-foot is equal to about 326,000 gallons. “Although we did receive some inflows and received some additional storage into the reservoirs, the drought is still continuing on,” Lutes said. “We’re still in drought conditions and we’ll continue to monitor this, but again we’re being very cautious.”