It occurred to me a while ago while posting the most recent press release by Congressman Hinojosa, that we have two water problems in the Rio Grande Valley. On the one hand, we don't have enough water. Our main source of water is the Rio Grande, which rises and falls depending on the amount of rainfall up at its tributaries and whether Mexican water officials choose to release water to it. For years we've had to conserve water. Our only other sources of drinking water are Circle K and HEB. Some people are able to drill for water. It's not the best solution for everybody, we have lots of areas with brackish water. You can get by with it for laundry and other things, but the high salt content defeats the emulsifying properties of soap. This makes laundry difficult. Your plants may not tolerate high salt content either.
With the hurricane disasters of last year, it came back to our memories that we are in a flood plain. There is a great deal of interest in fortifying our aged levies and improving our drainage systems. The RGV, within recorded history, has been flooded when we were directly hit by a hurricane. The valley has not been hit by a hurricane since then, leading people to believe that we are "overdue". Our levy system, has gone unused for years because we don't get hit by hurricanes often. Yet, we'll be glad that the levies are there when we do.
On the one hand, we don't have enough water. On the other, we can quickly have too much. I find this to be a funny paradox of sorts. This results in a schizophrenic government trying to promote conservation while at the same time protecting us from getting too much water. I recommend you have a two story house or live on the second story at your apartment complex just in case. And, don't forget to limit your water use.
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