Water Water Anywhere?

It's a pretty common story here, the dwindling lake levels across the area. We don't get a whole lot of rain to replenish the lakes and the last couple of years haven't been kind, rain-wise. So, a couple of weeks ago I was sent out to do a lake level story. I shot some photos at Lake Fort Phantom Hill in Abilene and then down to Lake Brownwood and Lake O.H. Ivey. I chose these three lakes because Phantom was local and easy to get to, Brownwood is one of the most populated lakes in the area and Ivey is on of the main water sources for Abilene, San Angelo and Midland, it's also the biggest lake in the area.

I had been to Lake Brownwood a couple of years ago and got some really nice photos, the difference, however, was when I went two years ago it was on a weekend in the middle of the summer. This time I was going on a weekday in early March, big difference. Basically I was looking to show how dry the lake was and found some boats sitting on dry land with high weeds around them. Then when I went to Ivey it was obvious how low the lake was, it also kind of showed the story about how deep it was and how much water was still in it. I also was able to show some of the human element at one of the boat ramps and got a few shots of some boaters coming off the lake. The bonus was finding a pack of deer running through one of the parks by the lake.

Water, Water... Nowhere...

This Sunday we ran a big water package about the drought in the area. Most of the local lakes are below 50% capacity. Between the fast evaporation rate from more than 30 days of 100+ degree heat this summer combines with the almost three months of no rain (I think there has been measurable rainfall in the area twice in the last three months). So, I ended up taking a few road trips around the area to shoot some of the lakes in the area. Pretty much all but one were in really bad shape, a couple were really just glorified mud puddles, it was really awful. However, it made for some really nice and storytelling photos.

It was really interesting, the first place I went to was Lake Brownwood, south of Abilene. One of the places I went to was a place I had last been to in 2007 when the lake was flooding. It was really crazy since the parking lot I had parked in was under six inches of water. This time when I went out there I took photos of some people tanning near the water about 40 yards from where the shoreline was supposed to be.

It's been a while since I've taken a real road trip around the area that wasn't sports related, so checking out all of these places from a news perspective was a little out of the norm. One of the places I went to was Lake JB Thomas near Snyder. This lake was barely even a lake it this point, it's kind of weird, the lake has never been more than 37% full and it's currently down to only three percent. As I was driving down one of the roads to get to the water I looked down at my GPS (pic below) to see how close I was and it showed I was in what should have been the middle of the lake, yet the water was still about 400 yards from my car! As I went further to the western side of the lake, there were areas that were so overgrown it looked like there had never even been any water in the so-called lake bed ever, I'm not sure if it was bad engineering or wishful thinking or a combination of both. The whole trip was a really eye opening experience that pretty much told the story of just how precious water is in this area.