The Nocona News (Nocona, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 30, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 9, 2014 Page: 2 of 8
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Montague County Area Newspaper Collection and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Friends of the Nocona Public Library.
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Page 2, Thursday, January 9, 2014, The Nocona News
Drought Stages drop Nocona’s water use
250
200
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Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Rainfall
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Water
use
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—38.63
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2009
2010
2013
2011 2012
Annual Rainfall
in inches
Drought Contingency Plan Stages
July 1, 2011 -- Stage 2- Mandatory even odd days for watering
Aug. 19, 2011 - Stage 3 — Mandatory twice a week watering
Oct. 22, 2012 ~ Stage 4 - Mandatory once a week watering
Aug. 29, 2013 - Non-essential water use restrictions
Plait works, use down 20%
Continued from Page 1
decline in annual rainfall and
a record one year heat wave,
despite the watering restric-
tions, consumption contin-
ued to soar to a total of 231.1
million gallons in 2011—or
a daily average of 633,000
gallons, more than 100,000
gallons per day more than
the community used two
years earlier.
By the end of 2011, Lake
Nocona was at 820.37 feet,
or 60.7% of capacity.
On Oct. 22, 2012, the
community moved into
Stage 4, mandatory one day
a week landscape watering
as the lake sunk to 818.81
feet, or 53.79% of capacity.
For the year of 2012 total
consumption slowed to
203.5 million gallons. That
was slightly less than what
the city used in 2010 but still
more than it used in the most
recent, unrestricted year.
By the end of the year
Lake Nocona’s elevation has
sunk to continued to 818.14
feet, or 50.6% of capacity.
“Once we really got seri-
ous about the restrictions, it
worked,” Henley said noting
By Tracy R. Mesler
What if it doesn’t really
rain?
That question has dogged
City Manager Lynn Henley
and the Nocona City Council
as this latest permutation of
drought enters its fifth year.
But Henley and the coun-
cil have a plan.
During the record drought
year of 2011 the city drilled
its first water well in 50
years on the northeast slope
of Blue Mound near the 14-
inch raw water which brings
lake water to the city’s water
treatment plant.
And while that well sur-
prised the city’s engineer in
actually producing sizeable
amounts of water, even run
24 hours a day it would fall
just short of meeting half of
the city’s daily water
demands.
With a price tag over
$200,000 councilmen have
been cautious about drilling
a second well.
But Henley has a plan.
“We’re going to see if the
rains come this spring,”
Henley commented
Tuesday. “And if they don’t
then this summer we’ll go
drill water well but at the
water treatment plant.”
Henley pointed to several
‘savings’ to drilling the well
on site.
“We won’t have to have a
new (electrical demand
meter and we won’t have to
run power to the site.
Drilling the Blue Mound
well cost the city $180,000.
But there was more than
$20,000 in additional costs
getting electric service to the
wellhead and laying a
pipeline from the wellhead
to the city’s raw water line.
Plus there is the monthly
charge for the demand meter.
the once a week restriction
had a dramatic impact on
water consumption. He
praised the community-wide
response as residents took
note of the declining lake
and rising concerns about
where the city would find
water.
On Feb. 27, 2013, Lake
Nocona fell below 50% of
capacity.
While 2013 was an above
average year for rainfall,
38.63-inches, virtually the
only water than went into
Lake Nocona during 2013
was what fell on Lake
Nocona. Only once during
the year was there any
reported runoff where
Farmers Creek crossed
beneath FM 1956 just above
the upper end of the lake. As
a result, all the frequent rains
could accomplish was to
slow the declining lake lev-
els, never appreciably
adding to the total.
On Aug. 29, after the
Nocona City Council
amended its Drought
Contingency Plan removing
the old Stage 5 requirement
to forbid all landscape water-
“I don’t have those numbers
in front of me, but it runs
something like $500 a
month,” the city manager
said. “That’s $6,000 a year
just have to the pump sitting
there.”
With two water wells,
even if the lake continues to
drop, Henley thinks the city
will be able to meet Stage 5
water demands.
“I think between two
wells we could have a pretty
good supply of water, though
we might have to get a third
(well) eventually,” he said.
But first the city council
wants to see if it will rain,
and rain hard enough to fill
the lake back up.
ing, Nocona entered Stage 5.
The lake was at 816.99 feet,
or 45.9% of capacity.
“If we hadn’t been
rationing, I don’t know
where we would be,” the city
manager said, shuddering at
the thought of the lake being
even lower.
But the watering restric-
tions, and the scattering of
was helping curtail con-
sumption in Nocona. The
average daily consumption
in 2013 dropped to 430,000
gallons, or 19% less than the
pre-rationing average. For
the first time, possibly the
first time since the Lake was
built, not once during the
calendar year did the city’s
total consumption exceed 1
million gallons.
On the down side, the
lake hit its record low of
816.22-feet on Oct. 14, or
By Tracy R. Mesler
As Nocona moves into
a new year, residents and
city officials both keep
looking to the skies hoping
for, praying for not just
rain - after all 2014 was
almost 10% wetter than
normal - but they are
praying for “a gulley
washer”, “a frog stran-
gler”.
They would even settle,
damaging as it might be,
for a flood of record pro-
portions. And for this
community, with a series
of 100-, 250- and 500-year
floods in the 1980s, that is
asking a lot.
But the simple fact of
the matter is, Nocona is in
the deepest drought since
the community shifted
from below ground
sources for water to above
ground storage in the early
1960s when Lake Nocona
went on line.
The records keep
falling.
*In 2009 Nocona
received a record amount
of rain for a month, 43.29-
inches, or 30% above the
20 year average.
42.8% of capacity.
Despite a dry August,
barely a half inch of rain,
slightly above average rain
in September, November
and December and the fourth
wettest October (6.22-inch-
es) in the past 20 years has
helped ease the lake up to
816.42-feet, as of Monday,
or 43.6% of capacity.
January is the middle of
the historically dried three
months of the year for
Nocona. On average the area
receives just 5.49 inches of
rain, or 16% of its annual
total.
If Lake Nocona drops
below 815-feet elevation,
then the community will
enter Stage 6 of its current
Drought Contingency Plan
which currently forbids all
landscape watering.
*Two years later 2011
went down as the driest
single year in history in
Texas, and Montague
County. The annual rain-
fall in 2011 of 21.58-inch-
es was 20% lower than the
20 year average.
*In 2011 the city
pumped more than a mil-
lion gallons a day 56
times, or one day out of
every two weeks for the
entire year. Meanwhile the
city’s annual average
water consumption is
slightly more than a half
million gallons.
*Despite receiving
3.75-inches of rain in July
of 2011, the city pumped
more than a million gal-
lons 28 out of 31 days!
*The city pumped a
record 1,364,000 gallons
of water on July 19, 2011.
*Lake Nocona set a
new record low elevation
of 816.22-feet (mean sea
level) on Oct. 14, 2013.
What 2014 brings to
Nocona - be it flood and a
full late, or continued
drought and lessen of the
city’s primary water
source, only time will tell.
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And if it doesn’t rain?
City to drill 2nd
well at water
treatment plant
Drought, rationing set
all sorts of city records
**
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them list an
artist.” —Picasso
**
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You are cordially invited to a
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Hosted 6y 'Roger and Etta 'Wittiam
Our sincere thanks and appreciation to all
those who expressed sympathy during our
time of grief; for your prayers, visits, calls,
food, flowers and cards.
Our special thanks to the nurses and staff of
Nocona General Hospital and to Thomas
Hankins of Solaris Hospice who were so
caring in her last days. We’ll never forget
your kindness to us and your love for her.
The Family of Frances McGaughey
Wgt Jfro cotta 3&eto£
USPS Publication No. 391-160
Established June 6, 1906
Editors & Publishers
Tracy & Linda Mesler
P.O. Box 539
115 Cooke St.
Nocona, Texas 76255-0539
(940) 825-3201 fax (940) 825-3202
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Annual Subscription Rates: $27.50 per year in Montague
County. $32.50 per year in Adjacent Counties. $37,500
Elsewhere in the United States.
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Mesler, Tracy & Mesler, Linda. The Nocona News (Nocona, Tex.), Vol. 109, No. 30, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 9, 2014, newspaper, January 9, 2014; Nocona, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth703864/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Friends of the Nocona Public Library.