On the Monday edition of the Chad Hasty Show, Paul Beane, Chad's substitution for the day, spoke with former Mayor Tom Martin about the upcoming Kids Fish event and the history of water in Lubbock.

The first annual Kids Fish Lubbock will take place Saturday April 26th at Maxie Lake. The program will be sponsored by the Lubbock Lions Club and the local American Business Clubs. The event allows parents to bring kids 2-17 years old to come fish from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. for free. The lake will be stocked with catfish for the event. Free food will also be available. More information can be found at www.kidfishlubbock.com.

In addition to this kids' event, Beane and Martin discussed water in Lubbock. Beane noted the importance of water and the observation that low and decreasing water levels has been a major issue in the city. Martin recalled that late in 2002, he realized just how low water levels were in Lake Meredith and the Canadian River System. Although Lake Alan Henry was built to supply water, a pipeline to transport water is lacking. So, while Mark McDougal was Mayor, a Water Commission was created so that water experts could begin addressing this issue.

In 2005, the city purchased about 250,000 acres of water rights, mainly in Roberts county. Martin said this was so that "we would have a lot of groundwater available, eventually to bring out of the ground, pipe into the main aqueduct that was basically sitting empty." Another project began to install the pipeline from Lake Alan Henry. Another project is the improvement of treatment of disposed water; this arose as a result of indirect contamination of the Ogalala Aquifer because of disposed water used to irrigate farms outside the city. Now, a tertiary treatment program is being used to make more disposed water reusable. More projects are being looked at to improve usage in Lubbock and to avoid a truly problematic shortage.

Martin said, "The good thing is that we live in Lubbock where we have taken these issues on in the last decade. We have the water for long term and we have the water for short term. We have more infrastructure to build; we know that. We have things that have to be replaced; we all know that. But things could be worse."

Listen to the full interview:

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