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Ready to unpack the powerful stories of a Texas titan - the Brazos River? Listen as experts explain the Brazos River Basin's immense role in our daily lives. They'll cover everything from the river's fascinating history to all the work that goes into ensuring you have water when you turn on your faucet.
Hear invaluable insights on topics like why lake levels change, the important projects safeguarding our water, the many species that call the Brazos home, and even some tips for enjoying the water from Brazos River Authority experts.
This is your chance to understand the immense work that goes into developing, managing, and protecting the Brazos River Basin, which stretches from the Texas-New Mexico border to the Gulf. (The basin is the size of Tennessee, y’all, it’s big.)
It’s a huge part of our state’s story and we can’t wait to share it with you.
Got questions about the Brazos? No more unknows. Ever wonder where that water comes from or where it goes? We're Unpacking the Brazos River.
Charlie Shugart:Welcome back back to to Unpacking the Brazos River. Feeling a little curious today? Good. Because we're taking a leisurely float down the Brazos River and picking up and sharing some intriguing and random facts along the way. Get ready to casually impress your friends with these tidbits.
Charlie Shugart:Or, you know, just file them away in your brain's cool stuff I know folder. I'm Charlie Shugart, and I'm with our public information office and thrilled to be joined by not one, but two people from my department. Judi Pierce and Candace Sheridan, say hello to our listeners.
Judi Pierce:Hi. Great to be here.
Charlie Shugart:Hi.
Charlie Shugart:Consider this your grand debut. Give us the lowdown. Who are you? What do you do?
Charlie Shugart:What's your role here at the BRA?
Judi Pierce:Well, I'm Judi Pierce. I'm the public information officer for the Brazos River Authority. And our goal is basically to educate the public about everything there is to know about the Brazos River Authority and the Brazos River Basin. I've been here for about twenty four years and love my job and love what we do here.
Charlie Shugart:And we love that you love your job. It makes the department fun. Candice?
Candice Sheridan:I'm Candice Sheridan, and I have been here three years now. I have a background in public education.
Candice Sheridan:My job here is public information coordinator, which means I just get to help share more information and educate the public in different ways.
Charlie Shugart:We love it. Education is such a big role in our department. We wanna be able to help people understand all there is to understand about water supply or lakes, the basin, all that is in between.
Charlie Shugart:So that's a big part of what the role of this podcast is. Well, I have a little story. Our department is peak nerdy fun. And this past Halloween, we collectively decided to be, wait for it, social butterflies. So picture this.
Charlie Shugart:All of us in butterfly costumes, Candace is smiling. Each of us with a different social media logo on our shirt. We were truly insta worthy and figured it was a pretty Meta way to show we love what we do.
Candice Sheridan:Nice.
Judi Pierce:Love it.
Candice Sheridan:Charlie with the puns. She's so punny.
Judi Pierce:I love it.
Charlie Shugart:So what can you tell me about the beginning of the Brazos. Where does it start?
Candice Sheridan:I have multiple answers for you.
Charlie Shugart:I love this.
Candice Sheridan:So the Brazos River Watershed actually begins about 80 miles west of the Texas New Mexico border, and it's gonna flow all the way down to the Gulf. It's a very, very large basin, covers more than 42,000 square miles. The Brazos River itself begins where two rivers meet, and that would be the Salt Fork of the Brazos, which is starts around the East Of Lubbock, and then the Clear Fork of the Brazos, which begins South of Lubbock.
Candice Sheridan:And where those two meet in Stonewall County is where the Brazos River begins. And it's gonna travel 937 miles down to Intracoastal Waterway, which is gonna be about, I guess, south and West of Freeport. The old mouth Of the Brazos went through Freeport and exited a little closer east, and now it's moved south.
Charlie Shugart:Well, I definitely think you're gonna have to back up and explain that one a little bit. What do you mean the mouth of the Brazos moved? Did it just pack up its luggage and find a new address?
Charlie Shugart:Yeah.
Judi Pierce:That's actually a really interesting story, and it started before the Brazos River Authority was formed. So, apparently, the way the the Brazos flowed into the Gulf Of Mexico or the Gulf Of America, now, it created a lot of sandbars. So, you know, some of the sediment moving down the river came with it, but it also had a lot of currents from the gulf, and sandbars were causing an issue for boats being able to go up the river. So, actually, it would be anywhere from four foot to seven feet deep depending on where those sandbars were moving to.
Judi Pierce:So, the US Army Corps of Engineers came in actually in the late eighteen hundreds and tried to move those sandbars around to make the mouth of the Brazos more, accessible to some type of shipping that would be able to go up to the the harbor. And they were unsuccessful because those sandbars moved so often. So in 1929, they actually came in and dammed up the original mouth of the Brazos and created a new mouth that went opening into the intercoastal waterway. The whole mouth of The Brazos moved about two and a half miles from where it originally was to where it currently lets into the Gulf Of America. So the original mouth is still there. There's a harbor available there, so you can move up the original mouth of the Brazos, but it is no longer the original mouth. It's now a secondary mouth from since 1929.
Charlie Shugart:I love the term mouth of the Brazas, but we really just mean the section that enters into the The Gulf.
Judi Pierce:Yeah.
Charlie Shugart:Alright. What's the story behind the name Brazos?
Candice Sheridan:I like that it's a fun word.
Judi Pierce:It is a fun word, you know? But but if you speak Spanish, then you would know that the word Brazos actually means arms. So you wonder why it's called the Arms River, and it's actually not called the Arms River. Official original name was Brazos De Dios. Pardon my horrible accent there.
Judi Pierce:Which translates into the arms of God. So we wondered, you know, why this was originally called the Arms Of God.
Charlie Shugart:That's so pretty.
Judi Pierce:It is. And there's several legends that talk about why it might be might have been named that. But probably the most likely of those is attributed to the Spanish conquistador explorer, Francisco Coronado, and his team as they were searching the New World for the seven the fabled seven cities of Cibola. And, supposedly, that there were there's seven cities of gold out there, and they were searching for them. And they got lost, and they ended up somewhere wandering in circles in what we now know is is West Texas.
Judi Pierce:And, of course, it was probably one of those years that, it was extremely dry. There was a lot of drought, and they were running out of water and basically losing men because they were were dying of thirst. Legend says that some kindly Native Americans found them and took them then to the river to be able to find some water. And as they approached and were so happy that they've made it to where they could find some drinkable water, they thanked God and said that this this was literally the arms of God embracing them. So that is the legend of the arms of God, or Brazos De Dios.
Charlie Shugart:That's a beautiful story.
Candice Sheridan:I like it.
Charlie Shugart:Candice, you mentioned earlier how long the river was. You said it was
Candice Sheridan:937 miles
Charlie Shugart:I don't know if people realize this. The Brazos is just that big.
Candice Sheridan:It's the longest within the borders of Texas.
Charlie Shugart:Okay, so, you know, if you dropped a rubber ducky at the head waters of the Brazos, You know, because I know everybody is wondering this. How many days would it take to reach the Gulf? Let's let's say there's there's no obstacles on the river and you can drop the ducky and just let it float all the way.
Candice Sheridan:And it passes through the three dams that are on the river.
Charlie Shugart:Yeah.
Candice Sheridan:I did ask some people who would know. Obviously, they wanted a lot more parameters to my question, and that would be our hydrologist. So I got anywhere from eighteen to twenty one days.
Charlie Shugart:I guess if I would have guessed, I would have thought much longer.
Candice Sheridan:Right.
Judi Pierce:I guess it would depend on the flows and how much rain that we've been having.
Candice Sheridan:Lots of those dependent on how saturated the ground was. I got a lot of technical answers.
Charlie Shugart:But I love it though. That's fun. That's just a fun visual. Thanks for that. Thanks for looking into that for me.
Charlie Shugart:Something I don't think a lot of people are aware of is the unique properties that make up the beginning of the Brazos River. Essentially, the Brazo River begins kinda like it ends. Right? A little salty?
Judi Pierce:Very salty.
Charlie Shugart:Very salty.
Judi Pierce:Back during the Civil War, apparently, the union army was running out of salt. And, of course, they needed that to preserve their meats and that type of thing. So the war department sent out a Lieutenant Colonel Estee Sturgis, and they sent him to Texas and said, we understand that there's some salt out in Texas, and why don't you go out there and see what you can find and bring back for us? Sure enough, he came and he searched Texas and and found a a good, amount of salt in East Texas, but then continued back on to the Western side of Texas in the Brazos Basin, and, what he found was water that was just undrinkable. And he sent a report back to the war department saying that the water of the Brazos River was so briny that it not even the mules would consume it.
Charlie Shugart:That's bad.
Judi Pierce:That's pretty bad. So we've known, you know, ever since the the Brazos has been used as water supply, we've known that it, it was very briny. And in Northwest Texas, it's very difficult to use it for irrigation purposes because of that.
Judi Pierce:Back in the nineteen sixties, after, you know, the Brazos River Authority had been around for a while, we actually commissioned a study with The US Geological Survey and the Department of the Interior to determine what we could do to try to alleviate some of that salt. And so they really did a lot of research into why that salt was in that area of North Texas. So what they found was that there's a salt dome that was created what they believe to be 500,000,000 years ago, and that area of the state was still underwater. It was part of the the ocean. And over the millions of years, that ocean retracted and went down to more of what we see as as the Gulf Of America, and it left behind a very large salt dome.
Judi Pierce:So what happens is when the aquifer underneath that area of the state fills
Charlie Shugart:Can you explain real quick what an aquifer is for people?
Judi Pierce:Sure. An aquifer is basically an empty area underground or an area where water can percolate through through the surface that holds water underground, groundwater.
Charlie Shugart:Big storage tank.
Judi Pierce:A big storage tank. As it fills, it will make that water percolate up to the surface. That would be spring water for most what most people would know running free. But in that area, because there's so much of a salt dome that had been left behind during the period that it was an ocean, it percolates that salt upward. And in the area, say, Jayton, Texas, it actually looks like there's snow on the ground.
Judi Pierce:The area where the Salt Dome is the largest is in Kent and Stonewall, Dickens, and King County is kind of an area where they intersect with each other. So it's the northernmost tributaries of the Brazos that have the most salt. That would be, the Salt Fork of the Brazos which has a north and south tributary and the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos. It's all salty in that region. In that area of the state, we have had to do a different type of water treatment process to make that type of water drinkable.
Judi Pierce:So in the rainy seasons, like we've had this springtime, the chloride content is gonna be a little bit lower because it's being diluted. But during drought, that chloride becomes very concentrated when it dries out and then when it does rain, it's an even higher concentration of chlorides that's moving downstream. So that study that they did in the 1960s had an a number of recommendations on what could be done about the salinity in that part of the state. And it was everywhere from pumping out the aquifer so it just didn't rise up and make that salt dome come out, to coming in and remediating it and basically digging it all out. But all of the recommended outcomes were so expensive that what they finally came down to was just to leave it be and do more studies that in the future there may be more amenable ways of getting rid of the salt in the water.
Judi Pierce:So there was another study that was done in the early 2000s, by the U. S. Economic Development Agency along with the BRA and Kent, Stonewall, and Garza County. And unfortunately, they came up with the same results. There were no financially feasible solutions identified.
Judi Pierce:So about ten years ago, the BRA worked with an engineering firm to come up with a model to predict how high these chlorides would be at different times of the year and different stream flows. And we have this chloride model available to our customers online where they can go in at different times and predict how strong the chlorides would be for the purposes that they need them for, whether it's manufacturing or industry or or cities and how they would need to be able to clean the water according to how how strong those chlorides were in the system. So that's on our website, and it's available to anybody that would like to take a look at it.
Charlie Shugart:That's fascinating. Okay. So you mentioned earlier that it almost looked like it has snowed in that area because of the salt.
Judi Pierce:It does.
Charlie Shugart:So we're not talking like a little salt in the ground. I mean, we're talking like
Judi Pierce:Basically a Texas snowstorm has come through, you know, where there's just a good light sprinkling of snow that one of those that only last a few hours during a normal
Charlie Shugart:Yeah
Judi Pierce:Normal snowstorm in Waco or in in the Central Texas area.
Charlie Shugart:Okay. So when we're talking about the Brazos River, what are some of the tributaries that enter into it? For those who don't know, a tributary in its simplest term is a stream or
Charlie Shugart:a river that flows into a larger stream or river or into a lake.
Candice Sheridan:So we have roughly 11 really good tributaries that are gonna flow into the Brazos from other reservoirs, and they obviously help make up the mighty Brazos River. So we've got Salt Fork and Clear Fork. We also have North Fork Of The Double Mountain and Double Mountain. So four up there in the upper basin, and all of those are going to feed in above Possum Kingdom Lake.
Candice Sheridan:As it extends, as the river extends, it's gonna pick up more entryways from other tributaries. We've got the Leon River, the Lampasas River, San Gabriel River, Little River, the Navasota, which comes straight out of Limestone, and then Yegua Creek. And Yegua Creek is the southernmost tributary that's coming out of Lake Summerville.
Candice Sheridan:I had a hydrologist who had to pronounce that for me.
Charlie Shugart:Oh, good. Yeah.
Candice Sheridan:The creek that starts with a Y. And he said, Yegua Was like, so now I just wanna say it all the time now.
Charlie Shugart:No. Love it. Okay. I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize, you know, when we're talking about the Brazos River Basin itself,
Charlie Shugart:that it's not just the Brazos River, that there's so many other different waterways that are feeding
Candice Sheridan:Feeding other reservoirs that then eventually feed the Brazos.
Candice Sheridan:So who put in the first dam on the Brazos?
Judi Pierce:There's some history before that, before the reason that we decided to build Possum Kingdom Lake. And, and it's actually really interesting, cool history on how we got there. So let me let me talk a little bit about that.
Candice Sheridan:Let me pause here and just interject that we should all know this from our Texas history class.
Judi Pierce:We we all should know our a little bit of our Texas history, but it certainly explains how we got to where we are right now as far as water supplies. In the nineteen seventies, when my family first moved to Texas, all I heard was about the number of times that the city of Waco flooded before they stopped the flooding. And you kinda wonder how in the world did they stop the flooding. It just went away one day. Well, no.
Judi Pierce:It didn't, actually. So Texas has always been a case for feast or famine when it came came to water. And we go through these periods of drought. We go through these periods of, well, drought almost always ends with a major flood, and that's that's just Texas. So
Charlie Shugart:I know that's something that is talked about frequently within people who work for the BRA, but I've said it before to somebody who doesn't. And to hear droughts almost always end with a flood really is, man, a stopping point.
Judi Pierce:It's really interesting because, you know, Texas in general has only one naturally occurring lake. Now there were some small springs and pools throughout the state, but basically, there are no real naturally occurring lakes in the state. The first one, is said to be Caddo Lake, which is right on the, edge of Texas and Louisiana border. And that one was said to have been formed by logjam. So in and itself, it was not actually a naturally occurring lake unless you consider a logjam a reason for a naturally occurring lake.
Judi Pierce:So all of these rivers that Candice just mentioned all feed from north to south downstream. And when we have heavy duty rain like we've had this this spring, that rain has to go somewhere. Before we had reservoirs, it would just continue to move until it got to the Gulf Coast. So throughout recorded history, we have different times when we've had major major flooding that have been recorded. So there was one recorded in 1833 that caused a good number of deaths and damage.
Judi Pierce:In 1842, major flood near Navasota, occurred making the Brazos leave its banks, and it widened till it was almost six miles wide as it traveled south. In 1913, there was flood that actually caused the Brazos River and the Colorado River to come together as one big waterway, flooding an estimated 3,000 square miles and causing more than a hundred and seventy deaths at that time. So then again in nineteen nineteen twenty one, there was another major flood, and, the Texas legislature said at that time, we've gotta find something that we could do about this. So in 1923, they actually voted to commission a study, and they appropriated $600,000, which was a huge amount of money at that time, survey all of the rivers in Texas and take a look at what might start being done to find a way to control the flooding. What happened out of that study, out of that survey was the very first river authority in Texas, which was the Brazos River Authority, or, we were actually called the Brazos River Conservation District at the time.
Judi Pierce:The great thing about it was that they formed us through legislation and said, you know, go out and see what you can do about flooding. And but they, unfortunately, didn't provide any money to do that. You know, of course, the first thing that that the district came up with was to build a water flood control lake. And so in surveying, you know, throughout the basin, the best place to do that would be at the at the top of the basin where the flooding would begin, which would be kind of in the the Mineral Wells area, so Possum Kingdom Lake area. So since we had no appropriations from the state to build this first reservoir, the people that were in charge of the BRA at the time there was there was a board that was formed actually, lobbied the federal government for some funding to be able to build this first reservoir.
Judi Pierce:And it took a good number of years from 1929 to early nineteen thirty four, thirty five. There was a lot of lobbying going on, lots of trips back and forth to DC. And every time they thought they had enough funding for it, something would happen, and the funding would fall through. At the same time that we were looking for funding, the United States federal government was also looking at what could be done for flooding throughout the whole United States, not just Texas. And there was a, a law passed that ended up being the flood control it was 1936, the Flood Control Act of 1936. And what that did was it it gave the issue of flood control to the US Army Corps of Engineers. So while at the time, the Brazos guys were looking at having Possum Kingdom Lake be a flood control reservoir. When the Corps of Engineers was given that responsibility for the entire United States, they took on the role of coming up with flood control reservoirs throughout Texas. And at that time is when, Possum Kingdom Lake's purpose of flood control kind of went away, and we became more of a water supply and hydroelectric lake, as as a purpose for Possum Kingdom. So Possum Kingdom was then built from 1936 to 1941. It was completed completed in in forty forty one, one, and it was built by Amberson Engineering Company. So during that time, after that flood control bill passed from 1936, the, US Army Corps of Engineers started planning all of their flood control reservoirs. And the next one to be built then on the Brazos was Lake Whitney, just above Waco, which it was started in 1947 and completed in 1951. And it was that reservoir that was the reason that Waco finally had the flooding controlled, no longer had the major major flooding through Downtown Waco.
Charlie Shugart:Interesting.
Judi Pierce:And then, of course, the third one was Lake Granbury. Again, a Brazos River Authority water supply reservoir that was planned between Possum Kingdom Lake and Lake Whitney, and that was completed in 1968. And then not long after that and most people don't know this, but as you drive through Waco, a lot of times, you'll see a very full Brazos River as you pass over on I- 35.
Charlie Shugart:We love a full river.
Judi Pierce:That's actually not the complete Brazos River. That's it's the Brazos River, as it runs through Waco, actually becomes Lake Brazos. And that was formed in 1970 with the original, low water dam that was built just on the south side downstream of Lake Waco or, excuse me, of the of the Brazos River through Waco, and it becomes Lake Brazos. So that was 1970. So all told, there are three dams on the main stem of the Brazos, which with the low water dam at Waco, being the southernmost.
Charlie Shugart:That's one of the differences between their reservoirs and our reservoirs. Right? And that they are kinda multipurpose reservoirs and that they have flood control and water supply, whereas the BRA's reservoirs are only water supply.
Judi Pierce:That's exactly right. They're considered multipurpose because, say, instance, in the case of Lake Whitney, it is flood control. It also serves the purpose of water supply in that the Brazos River Authority has a contract with the federal government to store the state of Texas' water in Lake Whitney, Whitney, which is a federal reservoir. So the Corps of Engineers owns and operates Lake Whitney. However, the Brazos River Authority also pays for the maintenance of of that dam in order to be able to store the state's water in a federal reservoir.
Judi Pierce:So and the other thing about Lake Whitney is it also is a hydroelectric power lake. So they are multipurpose in that they store water, for water supply. They control water from flooding, and they also, generate hydroelectric power.
Candice Sheridan:Wealth of knowledge right there.
Charlie Shugart:That is a wealth of knowledge.
Judi Pierce:In addition to Lake Whitney, there are seven others that are flood controlled reservoirs throughout our basin that also store the state's water through the federal government's reservoir areas.
Candice Sheridan:And the tributaries run through them.
Charlie Shugart:Way to circle that back in.
Candice Sheridan:Right? Package it up. Hey, Charlie. While we're on the topic of Waco, I think we do need to mention the suspension bridge crosses the Brazos.
Charlie Shugart:Yes.
Candice Sheridan:Right?
Charlie Shugart:Very popular destination in downtown.
Candice Sheridan:Absolutely. It was built in 1870. That was the original when it was put into use was 1870. And it was the longest bridge, suspension bridge, West of the Mississippi.
Charlie Shugart:Oh my gosh. That's incredible.
Candice Sheridan:So that's kind of a fun fact about that. It was the only crossing. So the Chisholm Trail, think about that, coming down through Waco.
Candice Sheridan:But it was the only, you know, safe crossing aside from the ferries that used to they used to use prior to that. They would ferry people from one side of the river to the other. And then actually, south in Falls County, right around the Marlin area, there is a place called The Falls, which was another crossing that was used by there's another crossing that was used by Native Americans and early settlers because it had such a rocky bottom I mean, yeah, a rocky shell that it was safe to travel across. So they it had a 10 foot drop. They called it The Falls. It became Falls County. The river moved, and now the drop is only two feet.
Charlie Shugart:Not the river being real busy moving around.
Candice Sheridan:Right?
Charlie Shugart:Just shuffling around.
Candice Sheridan:So they could cross, You know, in the eighteen hundreds, they could cross at the falls. Or as of 1870, they could come on up to Waco and cross cross the bridge.
Judi Pierce:And by the way, just to add something in there, the the falls on the Brazos actually moved over during one of those flood events that we talked about earlier.
Candice Sheridan:Oh that's right
Candice Sheridan:That's what caused it to move
Judi Pierce:That's what caused the river to move over was that it flooded so heavily that when it started to drain, it moved over about two and a half miles.
Charlie Shugart:So maybe this is a silly question. Do we have a lot of gators in the Brazos River.
Candice Sheridan:No.
Charlie Shugart:Are you sure?
Candice Sheridan:I think we have one popular one in Waco.
Charlie Shugart:I saw a log one time, though.
Charlie Shugart:I think he's grown.
Candice Sheridan:I think theories are he may have been someone's pet when he was young and cute, if that's possible. Is it possible to be young and cute as a gator?
Charlie Shugart:Yes.
Charlie Shugart:A swamp puppy? I love all the animals.
Candice Sheridan:I was talking to Judi at one point, like, have we ever had them anywhere else?
Judi Pierce:We get a lot of canoers that will call and say, hey. Can you give us some information on, you know, what what the river stream flow is like as you go downstream? And and over the years, I've heard that there are a good number of of alligators around the Hempstead area, but that was as far north as I've heard of of them. I have heard people in the Bryan College Station area say that as they've canoed, you know, or kayaks through those areas that they have sighted them, and so I'm sure they do come north.
Candice Sheridan:Right.
Judi Pierce:But you don't really find them much further north than the Bryan College Station area. So as you get down closer to the coast, of course, you're gonna have alligators. But
Charlie Shugart:Right.
Judi Pierce:Understanding is if you don't bother them, they don't bother you too much. Don't know. But but our one friend in Waco has gotten a lot of publicity lately on the news and in the newspaper. But, you know, most often, though, we don't we don't hear too much about alligators as we do about alligator gar. And we get a lot of people sending in pictures of alligator gar because that's
Candice Sheridan:Which is exactly why I will never get into the Brazos River ever again.
Charlie Shugart:Nooooo. They're incredible. They're prehistoric dinosaur-like
Candice Sheridan:They are a dinosaur fish. They look scary.
Judi Pierce:They are scary looking fish. But, you know, they get to be really large. They're supposed to be, you know, very much a cousin to the sturgeon, which looks similar to it, that live in different parts of our country, not in Texas, obviously. But, you know, we often hope that if people are going to catch them, that they'll just catch them and put them back because they are beautifully old creatures that live for many years. Take your picture, and then please let that that fish go back.
Charlie Shugart:And send your picture to us. We love to see what you're catching on the Brazos.
Judi Pierce:We do. People love to see pictures of large gar.
Candice Sheridan:And see why Candice is not getting in the river.
Judi Pierce:Absolutely. Couldn't blame you.
Charlie Shugart:You know, if you ask 10 different people around here what the Brazos means to them, you'll probably get 10 different answers. It's like everyone has their own personal relationship with the river. So what are some of the ways people connect to it?
Judi Pierce:I think the importance has probably changed over the years. You know, before there were reservoirs on the Brazos, it really was the main source of water unless you had the ability and the fortitude to dig your own well. Rivers in Texas are the lifeblood of the state, their water supply. I think most people nowadays, you know, we we have, clean water coming from our water treatment plants that are that are built and owned usually by cities or districts within the state. So people don't think about where their water comes from. It comes from the faucet. You know, you ask, where's your water come from? Well, you turn the faucet on, and it's there. Well, it didn't used to be that way. Back when the settlers first started coming to Texas, the rivers were the lifeblood of how they they kept going. And it definitely was something to fight over. If you couldn't get close enough to the river, you know, you really didn't have a way to water your cattle or your, you know, water your crops. And and without that rain, you didn't necessarily have successful crops. But I think nowadays, people most associate the rivers and the reservoirs in Texas, for recreation. Most people don't even really realize what the what the river authorities throughout the state do as far as trying to manage the water supply.
Charlie Shugart:The Brazos River Authority isn't the only river authority in the state.
Judi Pierce:No. There's 18 others besides us. We are one of the largest areas, largest basins, but we are definitely not the only one. But I think most people do associate the Brazos River with recreation, and it's it's great fishing, and it's great swimming. And but mostly for us, it's water supply.
Candice Sheridan:You know, before coming to the BRA, before working here, you know, it's the river across the river daily or across the lake daily. And I'm just thinking, oh, that's water. And it wasn't until coming here and realizing and understanding the power that a reservoir has as a lifeline to society, really. So without the reservoirs, you know, people will say negative things about damming up the river, and we should let the river do what the river does. But without the reservoirs, we we wouldn't have water to drink.
Judi Pierce:Right. Or a reliable supply of water, you know.
Candice Sheridan:Right.
Judi Pierce:And we would still be having flooding issues.
Candice Sheridan:Exactly.
Candice Sheridan:But but not just that. It's like the power of water.
Judi Pierce:Mhmm.
Charlie Shugart:Well, I mean, we just got done talking about how the river literally has moved multiple times.
Candice Sheridan:Right. It's the river does what the river does.
Charlie Shugart:The river does what the river does.
Candice Sheridan:Like, you know, just providing everything from electricity to, you know, just a supply for humanity.
Judi Pierce:Right.
Candice Sheridan:It's you just don't realize how powerful being able to store it and use it later until you almost don't have it. And so those those tough drought years, 2011 to 2015, even in 2022, thank goodness we have reservoirs to save water to use when we don't have it.
Judi Pierce:And what will we do without our air conditioning? Because that certainly is the basis for most of our electricity in the state. Think one of the things that we that I wish everybody knew was where their water came from. Because in the state of Texas, there's two ways to get your water. It's it's groundwater or surface water. And, of course, you know, as a river authority, we work with surface water. But there's also groundwater, which is a little more difficult to get and has a whole different set of laws that apply to it in the state of Texas. So, you know, every June, all of the water providers in the state are required to do a report to the public on where their water comes from. So each city, each subdivision, or municipal district, is required to tell their residents where their water comes from. So take the time and take a look at that and know, are you receiving river water or reservoir water?
Judi Pierce:Are you getting groundwater? Or is there a mix of the two? Because oftentimes, there is a mix of the two. Just learn where your water comes from. It doesn't come from the faucet.
Judi Pierce:It comes from something before them.
Charlie Shugart:If anything Judi or Candice shared today sparked a hold up, tell me more moment, Please reach out. You can email us at information@brazos.org. We've covered a lot, but, you know, if there's something else still on your Brazos wish list of things to learn, don't hold back. Tell us what you're curious about so we can dive in. Again, our email is information@brazos.org. And with that, we're out. Thanks for joining us on unpacking the Brazos River.