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On the heels of a dam failure which occurred earlier this week at Lake Dunlap in Guadalupe County near New Braunfels, the city of San Marcos issued a statement to its residents on social media not to worry:
“As you may have seen in the news, a gate failure on Tuesday, May 14 caused Lake Dunlap to be drained. Lake Dunlap is the source for our surface water supply. From the city of San Marcos water customers’ standpoint, the dam failure will have no impact.”
The reason, according to the statement, is due to the foresight of past city leadership by diversifying the city’s water supply to include both surface water and groundwater sources. Because of this, the city can supply its customers with either supply exclusively or a blend of both sources.
“The city’s normal water system operation is to use approximately 80 percent surface water and 20 percent groundwater,” the city said. “However, at times such as this with the dam failure or other events that may affect the surface water supply, the city is able to provide its water system needs solely through its Edwards Aquifer wells at full-service levels. There is no need for our customers to conserve beyond our normal year-round levels.”
The post added the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority – (GBRA), had completed a temporary solution within 30 hours for providing water from the Guadalupe River at Lake Dunlap and the city’s surface water treatment facility was back in operation about noon on Wednesday, May 15.
“This alternate pumping solution will be used until repairs are made to the dam. Water quality has not been affected and the plant is exceeding all the potable water standards as during normal operations. The city will continue to work closely with the GBRA during this process to ensure a safe and stable supply of drinking water to our customers.”
The city of Kyle Public Works Department is requesting customers exercise conservation effort and to stop any unnecessary water usage, including outdoor watering, car washing and pool refilling until further notice.
“The city of Kyle sources its water from multiple places and we’re being told by conserving now we’re doing the GBRA a favor by giving them time to make repairs,” said Travis Mitchell, Kyle Mayor. “But the city of Kyle is in good shape.”
Mitchell said the reason was because the city too sources about half of its water from two aquifers – the Edwards and Trinity.
“At the same time, if we go for an extended period of time without taking water from the GBRA it’s possible that our storage tanks would start to come down a little,” he said. “We try to always avoid that at all cost, so we certainly recommend conservation efforts.”
