Recent rains delay stage 3 drought restrictions

In mid-March, water levels at the city’s two reservoirs dipped below 30 percent capacity, which is the trigger level for stage 3 water restrictions. Two weeks of rains followed, keeping the city of Corpus Christi from actually implementing the restrictions, reported city water resource planner Brent Clayton. 
As of March 25, the combined water levels at Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi measured at 34 percent. A 30 percent level triggers stage 3 restrictions, which cuts inrigation of landscaped areas to once every two weeks on recyling pickup days only.
“I’m going to wait until all the water from the rains has gotten into the lakes to make a final projection,” Clayton told Corpus Christi Business News. “We still have two or three days of inflows coming down from the rivers. It takes a while for the water to get into the lakes.”
The rain was good, but it was no October 2013 deluge, which filled the reservoirs and restored the city’s water supply, if only temporarily. That rain covered a larger area with a five-inch downpour, delivering 200,000 acre-feet of water. 
With only a slight hope of another big rain on the horizon, the city will have to make do with current predictions of a wetter than usual summer and fall, Clayton said. NOAA measurements show temperatures warming in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which creates an El Niño weather pattern.
El Niño generates more rain in the southern portion of the U.S. Under current predictions, combined water levels in the reservoirs won’t top 40 percent.
Sometime in the late summer or early fall, the city water department will put together its drought contingency plan to present to the state as required by law. Clayton said they are timing the report to coincide with when the Mary Rhodes Phase 2 pipeline comes on line. 
“We’d like to be able to include the water from that resources in the count,” Clayton said.