TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — The thought of another drought is always at the top of mind for those who have lived through one.
In August 2022, KVUE spoke to Kathy Graf, a resident in Travis County, on what it was like to live through a drought. Graf's family was begging for rain after their well reached its lowest point when they moved to Travis County in the 1980s.
"We're gonna have more droughts to extremes," Graf said. "People really need to be concerned. Where is that water going to come from?"
The cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock are answering the question Graf is asking through a regional partnership called the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority (BCRUA).
These three cities are some of the fastest-growing areas in Central Texas, so the BCRUA is building a deep-water intake and tunnel system that will take water from Lake Travis to a new pump station. The project aims to draw water from the lowest possible point of the lake to ensure its distribution in case of a drought.
"If that lake really shrank down, again lower than it's ever been since that dam was built in the thirties, this would still allow us to be able to draw water from it. It gives us a much deeper straw than we ever had," Cedar Park Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin said.
The project started construction in June 2022 and is expected to be done in 2027. Leaders want to ensure residents will have water coming out of their faucets for the next century.
"This project is going to provide up to 145 million gallons per day for these three cities, which will meet their needs beyond 50 years," BCRUA General Manager Karen Bondy said.
"We need to be prepared, not just for historical droughts but also the worst droughts imaginable," Penniman-Morin said.
The new project is helping provide a solution to a fear that plagues Texans like Graf.
"We're strongly considering moving because of the drought, because of the water situation and the excessive heat during the summertime," Graf said.
The expansion project is funded in part with a low interest loan worth $194.4 million from the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas administered by the Texas Water Development Board.