utrgvtv HIDALGO COUNTY- Hidalgo County is actively working on increasing collaboration among cities to create a uniform Drought Contingency Plan in the Rio Grande Valley, due to a critical stage drought, according to officials.
According to Texas Living Waters, Senate Bill 1 and 2 requires the state to have a five-year Drought Contingency Plan.
In a news release issued by Hidalgo County, it states the plan is a part of a larger effort to start a regional water strategy that may help the county receive more state and federal funding for water management and infrastructure.
Richard Cortez, Hidalgo County judge, said the county is actively trying to have the cities adopt similar water conservation guidelines.
“I like to look at ourselves as, as a region of four counties, Star County, Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy County,” Cortez said. “And it’s important to us that our neighbors do as well [as] we do, so we wanted to have a regional approach to, to an alternative source of water.”
Cortez said if the water levels get too low, restrictions will have to be placed.
He said Hidalgo County is 20% below water levels.
“So, we have 6 stages of which we call, you know, trigger points and the stage we’re in right now is we’re in a critical situation.” he said. “It would go, it would go [15%] or below then that’s going to come into the emergency, emergency declaration situation.”
According to the news release, the trigger points are the following:
Stage 1 – Mild Drought Condition – water levels equal to or below 100%
Stage 2- Moderate Drought Condition – water levels equal to or below 40%
Stage 3- Severe Drought Condition – water levels equal to or below 30%
Stage 4- Critical Drought Condition – water levels equal to or below 20%
Stage 5- Emergency Drought Condition – with water levels equal to or below 15%
Stage 6- Drought Condition Water Allocation – under emergency order.
Cortez said desalinization is an option. However, it is costly which is not financially viable for the county.
“Well, it’s not that it’s not a problem it’s not that we can’t do it it’s just the cost It’s just horrendous,” he said. “It’s a very high amount of money to do that.”
According to the news release, 30 representatives of municipalities and water districts made an unprecedented effort to initiate a uniform drought contingency plan for the region on behalf of all water supplying entities.
Currently, the county is in the process of receiving a grant from NetBank to study alternative water sources.
