Most of us don’t give it a second thought: we turn on a tap in our homes, and clean, clear water comes out. Yet this is a fairly recent luxury, and one with a somewhat murky future. Reliably available water is a limiting factor for growth throughout the Texas Hill Country, and a decade of being the fastest growing county in the nation (with a population of 100,000 or more) has exposed some complicated issues around Hays County’s water supply.
When the Dripping Springs and Driftwood areas were first settled by Europeans, and for many years thereafter, each homestead managed their own water supply. Some hand dug wells, some relied on rainwater, and some drew directly from springs and creeks. One of the oldest structures in Dripping Springs, the Pound House in Founders Park, incorporates a rainwater system. The partially buried cistern can be viewed just outside the kitchen window, with a hand pump on the kitchen counter to convey water indoors. As recently as the 1950’s, some Dripping Springs residents were still reliant upon springs to serve their water needs. In the drought of record which took place during the ‘50s, the Dripping Springs for which the town is named, found just north of Mercer Street and City Hall along Milkhouse Branch Creek, ran dry. Walnut Spring, on the south side of town along Ranch Road 12, continued to flow throughout the drought, and the landowners there pumped water to a trough nearer the road so residents could have access to it. Walnut Spring has not yet been known to go dry.
All three resources, springs, wells and rainwater cisterns, continue to serve as major recreational and drinking water sources for us today. In the early 2000’s, Dripping Springs added another: surface water piped in from the Highland Lakes. Created by dams built from the late 1930s to the early 1950s for flood abatement and hydroelectric power, these five reservoirs are impounded and managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) and its offshoots. Three of the five are constant level, while the two largest, Travis and Buchanan, vary in depth as water demand in the region fluctuates. The decision to extend some of that water westward to Dripping Springs has, in large part, spurred the rapid growth we see currently. With the frequent and lengthy droughts experienced in the area, all of these resources are periodically stressed.
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