Heavy Rains Bring Needed Relief to Area Lakes

Ten to twelve inches of intense rainfall Saturday morning in Borden County brought much needed relief to the region’s water supplies.As of Monday morning Lake Thomas had risen 33.83 vertical feet and gained 82,770 acre-feet of new water supplies.  Lake Thomas is now 42.97 percent full and contains 86,200 acre-feet of water or 28,088,356,200 gallons. Inflow into Lake Thomas is expected to continue for the next week while the remaining water in the watershed makes its way to the lake.   The last time Lake Thomas was at its current elevation was November 1987.

As of this morning the E.V Spence Reservoir located in Coke County had not received any inflow from the recent rains however runoff from the rains over the weekend in Scurry County are beginning to make their way down the Colorado River and Spence may receive some inflow later in the week. The O.H. Ivie Reservoir gained 0.45 vertical feet and is now 16.93 percent full.

The inflow into Lake Thomas will change to way the CRMWD delivers water to its municipal customers.  Having water in Lake Thomas and being able to deliver that water to Big Spring, Odessa, Midland and Stanton is like having a new source of supply that can provide up to 18 million gallons of water a day for those customers.  The City of Snyder instead of receiving water from the Ivie Reservoir will now be supplied from Lake Thomas.