Day-by-Day Plan
Class One: Change of Direction for Austin (1900)

Students view the 1893-1929 Time Tour from Austin Past and Present , and complete the top half of the “Organizer: How the Colorado River Has Shaped Austin’s History” page.

Note : The most logical point in the course to do this series of lessons will be the study of the New Deal. The upper left portion of the organizer will therefore be review.
Teachers may wish to fill this part in as a class, prompting discussion with some guiding questions.
Class Two: A New Deal for Austin (1930’s)

After having read and studied about the New Deal, students should complete the bottom left of the Organizer.

They should then view the first part of the 1929-1949 Time Tour from Austin Past and
Present , and complete the bottom right portion to show some of the New Deal’s effects in Austin.
Class Three (optional): Rural Electrification and Daily Life
 If you have time and can obtain a copy of Robert Caro’s The Path to Power to put on reserve or for class reading, take a day to have students read the chapter entitled “The
Sad Irons” (or excerpts of it), describing life in the Texas Hill Country during Lyndon
Johnson’s youth, before most homes had electricity. This poignant description will be eye-opening for the students, and will help make the idea of rural electrification real to them. The page entitled “Rural Electrification: How It Changed Lives” can be used for students to take notes or reflect on the reading.
Class Four: Political Fights over the TVA

In a computer lab, or other setting where each student has internet access, have them go to http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/index.htm
, and give each student a copy of “Political
Fights Over the TVA” to complete. This asks them to do some of the readings and view some of the images on that site, and then analyze struggles over the creation and operation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Class Five: Reflection Essay

In class, have each student use their work in this unit to fill out an essay planner for the prompt shown on the “Reflection Essay” page. Assign the actual writing of the essay for homework.
Class Six (Optional Extension): Modern Flood Control in Central Texas
 Distribute “Flood Control on the Colorado River” and “Recent News Items.” Have students read about how the Highland Lakes dams presently protect Austin and other communities from flooding, and about instances in the last several decades that show the dangers still facing central Texas areas, even with a managed lake system. At http://www.lcra.org/water/river_report.html
, students can get an up-to-date report about lake levels, elevations in relation to historic averages, and planned water releases.
Class Seven (Optional Extension): “Power to the People” Exhibit at LBJ Library

For the 2006-07 school year, the LBJ Library is presenting an exhibit on rural electrification called “Power to the People.” Go to http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/ for more information, or call the LBJ Library at (512) 721-0020 to schedule a group visit for your classes.
2

Name ____________________
Organizer: How the Colorado River Has Shaped Austin’s History
Directions : In the left column, summarize national conditions in the time period shown. In the right column, use information from the two Austin Past and Present time tours shown and explain how the national conditions and the changes to the Colorado River affected Austin.
Colorado River
National Conditions Effects on Austin and Central Texas
Industry:
Popular culture in the Gilded Age:
1893-1929: City of the Violet Crown
1893: completion of dam
1900: flood destroys dam
1929-1933
1933-1937
1929-1949: Depression and War
June 1935: flood covers
Congress Ave. bridge, isolates South Austin
April 1940: completion and dedication of Miller Dam
1940-1956: construction of six “Highland
Lakes” dams
3

TEACHER GUIDE
Organizer: How the Colorado River Has Shaped Austin’s History
Directions : In the left column, summarize national conditions in the time period shown. In the right column, use information from the two Austin Past and Present time tours shown and explain how the national conditions and the changes to the Colorado River affected Austin.
Colorado River
National Conditions Effects on Austin and Central Texas
1893-1929: City of the Violet Crown
Industry:

Growth of industry in the North led to 1893: completion

The dam created a reliable source of power for Austin, making possible urban unprecedented economic growth in the of dam improvements: 31 moonlight towers, two decades after the Civil War

Leaders in the post-Reconstruction opera houses, and the Driskill Hotel.
South began to try to diversify away from a one-dimensional agricultural economy
1900: flood
 Destruction of the dam “humbled” Austin,
Popular culture in the Gilded Age:

With higher standards of living, urban residents began to look for forms of recreation and public entertainment: destroys dam ending its dream of becoming a manufacturing center of the Southwest.

Civic leaders like A.P. Wooldridge decided that Austin’s appeal should be based on saloons, sporting events, music and theater. physical beauty, quality of life, and presence of the University of Texas.
1929-1949: Depression and War
1929-1933

Overspeculation, high tariffs, uneven distribution of income, and mistakes by the Federal Reserve created an unequaled economic depression following the 1929 market crash.

9,000 banks failed, and one-fourth of the workforce was unemployed.
1933-1937

Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1933 and implemented the
New Deal.

New federal spending began on work relief programs like the CCC and
PWA.

The TVA built hydroelectric plants and dams to control flooding and bring electric power to rural families.
June 1935: flood covers
Congress Ave. bridge, isolates South Austin
April 1940: completion and dedication of Miller Dam
1940-1956: construction of six “Highland
Lakes” dams


Starting in 1931, Austin experienced high unemployment and low wages.
New Deal funds flowed to Austin. o PWA projects: streets, bridges, parks. o Federal financing of UT helped build dorms and the UT Tower.

Through the efforts of Congressman
Lyndon Johnson, $3.5 million came from the federal government to the newly created LCRA to rebuild the dam.

The dams formed a series of six lakes that enhance Austin’s natural beauty. They became recreational areas that caused Austin to be labeled an “oasis.”
4

RURAL ELECTRIFICATION: HOW IT CHANGED LIVES
Name ___________________________
Using your reading and the two pictures above, list on the left five tasks performed at least weekly in a house with electric appliances. On the right, indicate how those same tasks would have had to be performed in the early
1930’s by someone in a rural area without electricity.
Tasks Using Electric Appliances Without Electricity
5

Name _________________________
Political Fights Over the TVA http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/index.htm
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS
Under “A History pf TVA,” click on title shown to answer the questions that follow.
Origins of the TVA
1.
What were the TVA’s purposes?
2.
What was the “boldest authority” given to the
TVA?
Opposition to TVA
3.
Who opposed the TVA?
4.
What challenge to the TVA was made before the Supreme Court, and what did the Court decide?
5.
Explain John Battle’s 1935 comment.
Rural Electrification
6.
What % of city dwellers had electricity in the
1930’s? What % of rural dwellers?
7.
Why were private power companies unwilling to provide service to most farms?
8.
What agency was created to address this problem? What fear about it was expressed by members of Congress?
CARTOONS
Find these cartoons on the website under “TVA in
Cartoons” to view them.
1. Franklin’s Successful
Experiment a) What do you see? b) What do the people / objects represent? c) What is the cartoonist’s point?
2. Coal to Newcastle 1 a) What do you see? b) What do the people / objects represent? c) What is the cartoonist’s point?
(both cartoons together)
(d) Which cartoon takes a more positive stance toward the
TVA? What clues in the cartoons tell you that?
From the remaining cartoons in this section of the website, find one cartoon taking a positive stance toward the TVA and one cartoon taking a negative stance. In the table at the top of the next page, sketch the two cartoons and briefly analyze them.
1 Newcastle is a city in the coal-producing region of northern England. The phrase “carry coals to Newcastle” is a figure of speech meaning to do something superfluous.
6

3. Cartoon Title: a) What do you see? b) What do the people / objects represent?
c) What is the cartoonist’s point?
d) What clues in the cartoon tell you that the cartoonist is taking a positive stance toward the TVA?
4. Cartoon Title: a) What do you see? b) What do the people / objects represent?
c) What is the cartoonist’s point?
d) What clues in the cartoon tell you that the cartoonist is taking a positive stance toward the TVA?
[sketch the cartoon here]
[sketch the cartoon here]
P RIMARY D OCUMENT A NALYSIS : FDR AND J OHN B ATTLE
Directions : Read the two primary documents on the following pages ( Testimony of John D. Battle and Press
Conference of President Franklin Roosevelt ). Use them to contrast the two speakers’ views on the following questions. Where possible, support your answers with specific quotes from the documents. (Some questions may not have direct quotes that answer the question; in that case, make inferences.
John D. Battle President Roosevelt
1. How does he see the performance of industry prior to the TVA?
2. How does he see the TVA changing the relation between government and industry?
3. What is the ultimate test for whether a governmental economic policy (such as the TVA) should be undertaken?
7

T ESTIMONY OF J OHN D.
B ATTLE , Executive Secretary of the National Coal Association
Hearings before the House Committee on Military Affairs (74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1935) [excerpts].
Mr. Battle : [...]It is my desire on behalf of the coal industry to register with the committee our opposition to this bill [to expand the TVA] and to express the hope that this committee will be unwilling to give it a favorable report.
There is just one phase of this program to which we object most seriously, and that is the Federal Government spending the taxpayers' money for the erection of power plants which, as we feel, are not needed for the very simple reason that generally, throughout the country, there is an abundance of power capacity, and particularly in the Tennessee Valley region there is already an excess of capacity. We are at a loss to understand how the power generated at Government-built plants can be disposed of except to take the place of privately owned power plants now supplying that community - the great majority of which plants use coal in the creation of that power.
A great deal has been said about the social experiment. We approach this subject from the standpoint first of the employment of our people. There is a human element involved. There are about 400,000 men working in the coal mines of this country. It is their only means of livelihood. The program, as put forward by the Government, is calculated, in our opinion, to destroy the jobs of a number of these men.
We . . . feel that there is a need for an extension of electrical current to the rural regions. But we do not feel that it is the function of the Federal Government to use the taxpayers' money for the promotion of these projects. We feel that the American business man is far more capable of visualizing the needs for electrical power and far more capable of designing ways and means by which it may be furnished to prospective customers.
As we view these proposals, they cannot help the coal industry in which these millions are employed. They cannot help the railroads. They cannot help unemployment, but, we feel, they will add to the breadlines of this country.
Congressman Hill : . That is a very fair statement. You are not opposed to the building of dams in rivers for the purposes of navigation or for flood control, or for the prevention of soil erosion, or that kind of thing?
Mr. Battle . Not at all.
Congressman Hill . What would you do with this power?
Mr. Battle . You have no business producing it. Unless private industry wanted to produce it or could do it on a businesslike basis, it is no function of the Federal Government to produce it.
Congressman Hill . But they build these dams to provide for these very things that you think it is all right for them to do, and, when they build these are you going to let this power go to waste?
Mr. Battle . Rather than to add to our unemployment and put our people in the bread lines; yes.
The Chairman . Of course, you realize that the railroads oppose the improvement of the rivers for navigation.
They say that that is unfair competition.
Congressman Hill . But you do not go as far as they do?
Mr. Battle . No; I am talking about the thing right down our alley - destroying our business.
Mr. Thomason . Mr. Wilcox whispered to me a few minutes ago that the stage-coach people did not think much of the railroads when they came in, just as the railroads now do not think much of good roads, and of trucks and buses.
Mr. Battle . Perfectly true, and we are willing to be put out of business if it can be done in a plain straightforward business like manner, but we do object to our Government putting us out of business.
8

P RESS C ONFERENCE BY P RESIDENT F RANKLIN R OOSEVELT Warm Springs, Ga. (November 23, 1934)
(excerpts)
Q . Do you mind telling us what your ideas are regarding private power companies?
THE PRESIDENT : All right, I shall give you something on that, but this has to be off the record because I don't want to be in the position of interpreting what I said. (Laughter)
I can put it this way: Power is really a secondary matter. What we are doing there is taking a watershed with about three and a half million people in it, almost all of them rural, and we are trying to make a different type of citizen out of them from what they would be under their present conditions. You went through a county of Alabama where the standards of education are lower than almost any other county in the United States, and yet that is within twenty miles of the Muscle Shoals Dam. They have never had a chance. All you had to do was to look at the houses in which they lived.
So T.V.A. is primarily intended to change and to improve the standards of living of the people of that valley. Power is, as I said, a secondary consideration. Of course it is an important one because, if you can get cheap power to those people, you hasten the process of raising the standard of living.
The T.V.A. has been going ahead with power, yes, but it has been going ahead with probably a great many other things besides power and dam building. For instance, take fertilizer. You talk about a "yardstick of power." Dr. H.
A. Morgan is running the fertilizer end of it and at Muscle Shoals he is turning out, not a nitrate - the plant was originally built for a nitrate plant - but he is turning out a phosphate. He is conducting a very fine experiment with phosphate of lime. They believe that for this whole area around here, and that would include this kind of soil around here, phosphate of lime is the best thing you can put on land in addition to being the cheapest.
Now at once, the fertilizer companies, the National Fertilizer Association that gets out figures (laughter) , say, "Are you going into the fertilizer business?" The answer is a very simple one. The plant is primarily an experimental plant. That is the primary purpose. Therefore, they are going to take this year a thousand acres of Government land, worn-out land typical of the locality, and they are going to use this phosphate of lime on these thousand acres and show what can be done with the land. They are going to give a definite demonstration. They will compare it with the other fertilizers, putting them in parallel strips, and they will see which works out best and at the lowest cost.
Having the large plant, they will be able to figure out what is a fair price for the best type of fertilizer.
Having done that and having figured out the fair price, it becomes a process of education. If the farmers all through that area can be taught that that type of fertilizer at x number of dollars a ton is the best thing for them to use, then it is up to the National Fertilizer Association and its affiliated companies to meet that price. Now, if those gentlemen fail to avail themselves of this magnificent opportunity to conduct a sound business and make a profit, well, it is just too bad. Then somebody will get up in Congress and say, "These fellows are not meeting their opportunities and the farmers will have to have the fertilizer and of course we shall have to provide it." But I, for one, hope that that day will never come. Now, that is not holding a big stick over them at all. It is saying to them, "Here is your opportunity. We go down on our knees to you, asking you to take it."
Q.
Just a little guiding light.
THE PRESIDENT : In other words, what we are trying to do is something constructive to enable business...
Now, coming down to power. You take the example of Corinth we went through the other day. Now the Alcorn
County people, that is the Alcorn County Electric Power Association, did a very interesting thing. There they had
Corinth, which is a good- sized town, and they found they could distribute in Corinth - these are not accurate figures - they found they could distribute household power at about two cents a kilowatt hour. But if they were to run an electric line out to a farm, they would have to charge three cents. In other words, the farmer would have had to pay more.
9

What did the Corinth people do? They said, "We can get cheaper power than the farmer, but we think he should have the same rates we are getting." Voluntarily they agreed to take and to pay for two-and-a half-cent power which enabled the farmer to get two-and-a-half cent power. That is an extraordinary thing. That is community planning.
Now, there was no reason in God's world why the Mississippi Power Company could not have gone to Corinth and said the same thing - no reason in the world. It just never thought of it. It could have done that same thing. But it was the T.V.A. that went down and sold the idea to the people in that county and said, "Let us have a uniform power rate for the man next to the powerhouse and the same rate for the man who lives twenty-five miles up the
Valley. We don't want to concentrate any more people in Corinth. We want to increase the rural population."
The result of that operation is that they are increasing - they have more nearly doubled the consumption of power.
Furthermore, they have gone ahead and formed another association, tied up with this county one, by which people can buy refrigerators and electric cookstoves and all the other gadgets at a figure which is somewhere around 60 or
70 percent of what they were paying before.
I hope that the proper power-company officials will accept this free education that the Government is giving them.
It is a fine offer and a grand chance. If they come in and do it right with a reasonable profit on their actual cost, that is all we are asking. No threat....
Q . Or else?
THE PRESIDENT : No or else....
10

Reflection Essay: Essay Planner
Prompt : Which did the New Deal change more profoundly – the relationship between the federal government and the ordinary citizen, or the relationship between government and industry?
Government – Citizen Changes Government – Industry Changes
List New Deal programs the describe the change in the government’s relation with the ordinary citizen:



List other facts / quotes from primary documents studied in this unit:



Topic sentence (overall point):
THESIS SENTENCE:
List New Deal programs the describe the change in the government’s relation with industry:



List other facts / quotes from primary documents studied in this unit:



Topic sentence (overall point):
11

Map of Austin-area dams and lakes:
Source: LCRA
When water reaches this level (722 feet) , all 24 floodgates of Mansfield Dam can be opened.
100-year floodplain (meaning that the water is predicted to reach this level once every 100 years)
10 of 24 floodgates can be opened at this level. If the water continues to rise, officials can open 15 floodgates. At that point, there is no protection against flooding of downstream cities; officials are simply trying to save the dam.
6 of 24 floodgates can be opened if water reaches this level.
When water reaches this level, officials can open
1 of Mansfield Dam’s 24 floodgates, releasing
3000 cubic feet of water per second. They must reduce the water release if the river rises to certain trigger points downstream (20.5 feet in
Austin).
At a level of 681 feet, Lake Travis is considered to be at its normal “full” level.
 722 feet (above sea level)
 714 feet

710 feet
Lake Travis

691 feet

685 feet

681 feet
12
Mansfield Dam
[City of
Austin]

News Items About Flooding in Austin’s Recent History (Since 1990)

Austin American-Statesman , December 23, 1991
Tired and soggy, some Lake Travis residents gathered what valuables and clothing they could Sunday and wondered how long it will be before they see their homes again. Hundreds of houses and mobile homes remained partially or totally submerged, and officials of the Lower
But Kopeck didn't lose his altruistic spirit. Early Sunday, he rescued Missy, a friendly black dog of mixed heritage who is afraid of the water.
Lake Travis residents borrowed whatever they could find
Colorado River Authority say it could be weeks before the lake returns to normal levels. Officials expect the lake to creep to 708 feet above sea level early this morning, breaking the all-time record of 707.3 ft. set May 18, 1957.
In what citizens already are dubbing the Great Christmas
Flood of 1991, about 6 inches of rain deluged an already soggy Central Texas on Friday night and Saturday. At
Graveyard Point on Lake Travis, an estimated 50 houses were underwater. "We couldn't get to it - the water came up so fast," said Dewey Cooper, who lives near the corner of Armadillo Cove and Blue Cat Lane. "We lost the furniture and everything."
Many residents, without insurance and their holidays ruined by the flood, turned their anger toward the LCRA, saying the authority should have released water downstream sooner. "LCRA lied about how fast the water was coming up," Cooper said.
But an LCRA official noted that the water actually rose more slowly than the authority had predicted, giving residents time to react. "Not all our predictions came true," said Robert Cullick, LCRA spokesman. "And we adjusted our predictions a couple of times. But that's the nature of predictions." Cullick also noted that many people have built homes below the spillway level of 714 feet. Any home built below that level is subject to flooding.
Lake Travis is a flood-management lake, meaning it collects water from upstream and distributes it downstream in accordance with Corps of Engineers guidelines. Too much water released too soon can mean disaster for other communities, such as Bastrop, Smithville and La Grange.
Residents reacted quickly as the lake level rose through the weekend. Bill Kopeck borrowed a 14-by-20-foot dock and dragged it next to his house. Then he hoisted his valuables, including a refrigerator, stove and Wurlitzer jukebox, out from the second floor of his house and onto the dock.
"That was my last resort and it worked," Kopeck said. "I lost a trailer house and another house and that house. I lost three houses. And a garage." that could float - canoes, motorboats, yachts and even a catamaran - to try to salvage items out of their homes, repair docks and tie up abandoned boats that were floating on the lake. "If anyone comes up looking for this flatbottom boat, tell them it will be right back," Cooper said as he set out for his home.
David Henderson said he has never seen so much water in
Lake Travis. "They say that 1951 or 1952 was the last flood that came close to this," he said. The water was so deep that it covered the Austin Yacht Club’s club's newly painted 25-foot sign. And it was yards above the club's swimming pool, which Henderson drove visitors over in a boat. "It's going to take three days for all this water to wring out of the Hill Country, work through the tributaries, work through the Pedernales," he said.
H IGHLAND L AKE LEVELS : Floodgates were opened
Saturday, as the lake levels reached record heights. Some flooding occurs downstream as a result of the openings.
Lake Normal
Level
Buchanan
Inks
LBJ
1020 ft.
888 ft.
825 ft.
Marble Falls 738 ft.
Travis
Austin
681 ft.
492.8 ft.
Level on
Sunday evening
(Dec. 22,
1991)
Action Taken
1020.3 ft 6 gates open at
Buchanan
Dam.
895.3 ft. Spillway open at Inks Dam.
824.3 ft. 2 gates open at
Wirtz Dam.
736.53 ft. 10 gates open at Starcke
Dam.
705.3 ft.
(projected to reach 708 ft. on Dec.
23 rd )
4 gates open at
Mansfield
Dam.
491.7 ft. 3 gates open at
Tom Miller
Dam.
13

For first time since 1998, LCRA releases water that has been filling Lake Travis
Austin American-Statesman , July 6, 2002
It took eight minutes for twin electric motors to open floodgate No. 19 at the base of Mansfield Dam at about noon Friday, accelerating the release of floodwaters that have been flowing into Lake Travis. Each second since
When the river authority projects the lake level to exceed
691 feet above mean sea level -- 10 feet above normal -- it can begin releasing water through floodgates. then, enough water has rushed though the floodgate, an 8
1/2-foot diameter tunnel through the base of the dam, to fill two backyard swimming pools of about 20 feet in diameter, dam mechanic Keith Hamilton said.
It's the first time any of the dam's 24 floodgates have been opened since March 1998, and the novelty of triggering the electric-powered gears (or a hydraulic system used on other gates) hasn't dissipated. This time the distinction of activating the floodgate fell to Jesus Garza, the former
Austin city manager who recently became a deputy general manager at the Lower Colorado River Authority, and
The limits on releases are intended to protect larger communities downstream, including Austin. During the record flood of Christmas 1991, only six floodgates were opened. At the projected maximum lake level given current conditions -- 693 feet-- as many as 229 structures built in the Lake Travis flood plain could end up partly or completely under water, according to new data from the river authority.
All the highland lakes except Travis and Buchanan remained closed to recreation because of swift water. On
Travis and Buchanan, water near the mouths of rivers and board member Ray Wilkerson.
Since persistent rains started falling a week ago, more than creeks is likely to contain elevated bacteria counts and hazards such as debris washed downstream, so swimming, skiing and boating could be risky, officials warned.
100 billion gallons of water has flowed into Lake Travis, the primary flood control lake on the Colorado River.

Austin American-Statesman , January 2, 2006
The December flood of 1991 was a heartbreaker for hundreds of families across the Austin area, particularly on could buy 1 percent chance lottery tickets," said the authority's chief of river services, David Walker, "that
Lake Travis, which rose high enough to submerge homes all along the shore even as they sparkled with colorful holiday lights.
The flooding a few days before Christmas was the worst in the reservoir's 64-year history, but the Lower Colorado
River Authority plans and trains to deal with an even bigger one: a catastrophe in which the lake would crest 12 feet higher than the 710.4 feet above sea level that it reached in 1991 and stay there for at least two weeks.
"A lot of folks tend to forget what happens in a flood," authority spokesman Bill McCann said. "They need to prepare now for how to get out and plan their escape routes."
In its computer modeling of this flood of a magnitude that has not occurred on the Colorado River since 1938, before completion of most of the six present dams, the river authority assumes that property damage on Lake Travis alone would be at least $153 million, partly because so much more of the shoreline has been developed since
1991.
The disaster would be a 100-year flood, meaning one so large that it has only a 1 percent chance of happening in any year. But that doesn't mean it's unlikely. "If you would be a pretty good deal. And because it happened in one year doesn't mean it couldn't happen the next year again."
The 100-year flood might occur via waves of Pacific storm systems passing slowly over the Hill Country, producing
10 inches of rain over a 10-day period. The resultant flooding would send overflow waters rapidly downstream to the one reservoir designed to hold them: Lake Travis.
Austin would not escape entirely, despite being saved the devastation of the 1930s floods by measured releases from
Mansfield Dam. Lake Austin would rise 10 feet immediately below Mansfield Dam and less farther downstream. Town Lake would rise 10 feet, flooding the hike-and-bike trail and Cesar Chavez Street east almost to the First Street bridge, halting traffic on Cesar Chavez for more than a week.
River levels would crest above flood stage all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It's been so dry this season that any flood scenario seems unlikely. But floods often occur in
Central Texas when they're least expected. “The 1952 flood happened right in the middle of a drought. It's feast or famine around here," Walker said.


Austin American-Statesman , November 23, 2004
To understand how the Lower Colorado River Authority decides who gets flooded and who doesn't during a very heavy rain, imagine a massive water system with only one disappear, and the LCRA would do what it could to prevent the disaster of the dam collapsing altogether. spout.
Water in the system backs up and puts pressure on the pipes, so the LCRA opens the spigot -- Mansfield Dam -- to relieve the pressure. Open the spigot too much, though, and you flood the people on the other end: people in
Austin, Bastrop and other points downstream. This is the
LCRA's rain dance, one the agency has tried to perform once again over the past few days.
Not counting people who have been swamped by the rain, the Colorado River has taken a fairly typical toll: Oftflooded houses at Graveyard Point on Lake Travis have once again taken on water; Town Lake rose high enough to wash out part of the hike-and-bike trail surrounding it and inundate West Cesar Chavez Street during the Monday morning rush.
Expect more trouble in coming days as the river's crest rolls toward Bastrop, where the Colorado is projected to rise to about 5 feet above flood stage this morning.
Wharton, a town roughly 40 miles upstream of the Gulf of
Mexico that has already struggled with flooding, will probably see the river crest at flood stage Sunday.
The LCRA controls river levels with a system of six dams.
But only one is large enough to act as a faucet to control the amount of water that flows downstream: Mansfield
Dam, the concrete and steel wall holding up Lake Travis.
The agency now predicts that Lake Travis will rise as high as 697 feet above mean sea level in coming days. It's considered full at 681 feet. Once the lake goes above 685 feet, an amalgam of agency policies and federal regulations kicks in, determining how much water the dam will let go down the river.
Because Lake Travis is so large, the LCRA can store floodwater behind the massive dam, using it as a buffer until the rain stops and water levels recede downstream.
The agency projects water levels based on the amount of water in the river and the rain pouring in its watershed,
LCRA spokesman Robert Cullick said. When officials predict that the river will rise to certain trigger points in the downstream cities of Austin, Bastrop and Columbus, they tighten the valve at Lake Travis, hoping the storms will break and floodwaters in the inundated river will flow into the Gulf.
But the lake has triggers of its own. And if it continues to rain, and if the lake rises to those levels, operators can release more water. In a worst-case scenario, such as a
100-year flood, the triggers protecting cities would
"There's a lot of science and a little bit of art in making this work," Cullick said. "The art part is the really deep experience we have in our staff." Monday's flooding offers a helpful demonstration of the dance. As Lake
Travis rose Friday, the LCRA opened four floodgates, as many as the agency has opened since 1991.
Then rain pounded Austin late Sunday, pouring down creeks and causing Town Lake to flood. In response to the rising water in Austin, the LCRA closed every floodgate but one by Monday morning. The agency didn't act until the rain actually began falling. Cullick said the agency never manipulates river levels in advance of storms, saying the weather could foil its actions by raining in the wrong place. "You've got to wait until it falls," Cullick said.
Basics about the Lower Colorado River Authority
(LCRA) :

The LCRA provides electric power to much of
Central Texas, as well as water and wastewater services, flood control, and conservation services
 along the Colorado River.
From 1935 to 1951, LCRA created a chain of reservoirs on the Colorado River northwest of Austin to provide a stable water supply for the basin, protect
Austin and downstream communities from the worst effects of Hill Country floods, and generate hydroelectric power. The two largest reservoirs are
Lakes Buchanan and Travis.
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LCRA owns about 16,000 acres of parks and recreational lands along the Highland Lakes and
Colorado River.
The LCRA is not funded by tax dollars; it gets its revenue from selling electric power to 33 cities and towns and 9 electric cooperatives, and from water sales. The utilities and cooperatives serve 53 counties, which are home to over 1 million people. (The 33
 cities and towns do not include the City of Austin, which owns and operates its own electric utility.)
The LCRA sells power "at cost" -- that is, without making a profit – but its costs include the cost of building, maintaining and operating dams and parks, as well as the other services it provides.
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The LCRA is controlled by a board appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate.

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