Water Supply of the Houston Gulf Coast Region

摘要

Contrary to belief in some quarters, the Houston region has no water shortage. Indeed, there is an abundance of water. With adequate programs of development and operation, it appears there will be plenty to meet all reasonable needs in the future. The water-resource problem in this region is that of developing available supplies in the best manner, not searching for outside supplies.The water for all public supplies, nearly all the industrial supplies, and a large part of the irrgigation supplies of the Houston district, which embraces an area of about 1,800 square miles, is drawn from wells. Most of the wells range from 450 to 2,000 feet in depth. In 1930, the estimated average pumpage for the district was 68 million gallons a day, but by 1949 it had increased to about 250 million gallons a day. Most of the pumpage is from three areas: (1) the City of Houston and the closely adjoining metropolitan localities; (2) the Pasadena area, which includes the vast industrial section along the Houston Ship Channel from the Turning Basin to the vicinity of Deer Park; and (3) the Katy rice-irrigation area roughly centering around the town of Katy. This report covers the current phase of an investigation of the supply of ground water available for the Houston district, and in addition summarizes the results of several previous reports.