WYLIE -- Don't let last week's rain and the recent cooler weather fool you: North Texas is still in the middle of a severe drought.

Nowhere is that more evident than in fast-growing Collin County, where brown lawns and cracks in the soil are commonplace.

Lavon Lake, one of the primary water sources for those booming suburbs north of Dallas, is 15.5 feet below normal. Many of its shallower coves have gone dry, filled with weeds and tree stumps.

In the nearby bedroom communities of Wylie and Murphy, yard signs urging residents to cut their water use by 5 percent are everywhere, from major intersections to the entrances of gleaming new subdivisions.

It has prompted the North Texas Municipal Water District, which serves cities to the north and east of Dallas but not Tarrant County, to consider imposing more landscape-watering restrictions for its 1.5 million customers in an attempt to stave off more Draconian limits.

But the drought is also raising more vexing long-term questions about whether there is enough water to sustain the region's booming growth.

"There is no more water close to us," said David Marshall, engineering services director of the Tarrant Regional Water District. "There has to be some more reservoirs built in order for this area to grow."

State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, a member of the state Drought Preparedness Council, said water planners may need to prepare for a drought longer than the one in the 1950s.

"What if we're in a whole new drought of record?" Nielsen-Gammon said. "We would need to retrofit all of our plans."

The Tarrant Regional Water District is already thinking along those lines and has begun planning for a 20-year drought.

"That may mean we need to build some of the reservoirs sooner than we first thought," Marshall said.

Of the four proposed reservoirs that would provide water to North Texas, two are in serious jeopardy.

The 62,000-acre Marvin Nichols Reservoir in Northeast Texas, which isn't scheduled to come on line until 2060, is crucial to fulfilling North Texas' long-term water needs but has met fierce opposition.

Another proposed reservoir, Lake Fastrill in East Texas, was effectively killed in June when federal officials announced plans for a wildlife refuge along the Neches River.

"I don't know if any more lakes will ever be built in Texas," said Jim Parks, executive director of the North Texas Municipal Water District. "We won't know the answer to that until some entity constructs another reservoir."

The current draft of the 2007 water plan predicts that the state's population will double by 2060 and that the available water will decline by 18 percent unless new sources are discovered.

The plan also states that the 16-county greater Metroplex region will need to spend $13.2 billion to double its water capacity during that time.

North Texas "is faced with rapid, unpredictable growth and the possibility of large water shortages in the future," the report says. "Because of environmental and land use concerns, there was significant opposition during the planning process to the proposed reservoirs recommended as water management strategies in this plan. Other management strategies proposed by the region could prove difficult to implement due to cost and regulatory requirements."

Bill Meadows, a member of the Texas Water Development Board and a former Fort Worth City Council member, said more reservoirs can be built if North Texas cities become thriftier with their water use and can justify the need.

"At the end of the day," Meadows said, "if we've done all that and shown we're conserving water, I think Marvin Nichols will be built."

Looming in the background are water marketers like oilman Boone Pickens, who firmly believes that the North Texas Municipal Water District or another local entity will become a customer for his company, Mesa Water, which has rights to water from the Ogallala Aquifer in Roberts, Hemphill, Lipscomb and Ochiltree counties in the Panhandle.

Pickens said it would cost $2 billion and take five years to build a pipeline from the Panhandle to the Metroplex. If districts like the North Texas Municipal Water District don't solve their water needs soon, he thinks that North Texas' booming growth could be choked off.

Parks, the executive director of the North Texas Municipal Water District, disagrees with that assessment but acknowledges that Pickens' water could eventually be tapped as a source. The North Texas Municipal Water District is working on piping water from Lake Tawakoni and Lake Fork in East Texas as well as bringing more from the East Fork Wetlands project near Seagoville.

"We hope to bring those on line by the end of 2007," Parks said. "There's nothing else out there that can be developed that quickly."

Still, the 78-year-old Pickens insists time is on his side. He said he's confident he'll strike a deal within his lifetime.

BIG NEEDS AWAIT

13 million: Projected population of North Texas in 2060

3.3 million: Projected acre-feet of water North Texas will need in 2060

1.7 million: Acre-feet of water now available to North Texas

SOURCE: Texas Water Development Board

WHEN'S IT GOING TO RAIN?

Get used to Tuesday's weather; it won't change for a while.

Forecasters are calling for partly cloudy skies and temperatures around 90 until at least Sunday. That's when a cool front should push into North Texas and bring a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Even then, temperatures will remain in the mid- to upper-80s.

CURRENT RESTRICTIONS

171: Texas water districts facing mandatory restrictions

95: Water districts facing voluntary limits

SOURCE: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

Bill Hanna is a Star-Telegram Staff Writer. For additional information regarding this article, please contact Bill at billhanna@star-telegram.com. All comments are the sole responsibility of the author. 

This article was originally posted 11/7/06.