Yellow House Draw

Yellow House Draw
West Texas
300px Yellow House Draw – a dry remnant of a wetter past
Country	United States
State	Texas
Region	Llano Estacado
Source	Northwestern Roosevelt County, New Mexico
- location	Roosevelt County, New Mexico
- elevation	1,268 m (4,160 ft)
- coordinates
Mouth	Confluence of Yellow House Draw and Blackwater Draw
- location	Lubbock, Texas
- coordinates
Length	130 km (81 mi)
Basin	9,790 km2 (3,780 sq mi)
Website: Handbook of Texas: Yellow House Draw

Yellow House Draw is an ephemeral watercourse about long, heading about southwest of Melrose, New Mexico, and tending generally east-southeastward across the Llano Estacado to the city of Lubbock where it joins Blackwater Draw to form Yellow House Canyon at the head of the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River. It stretches across Roosevelt, Curry, Bailey, Cochran, Hockley, and Lubbock counties of eastern New Mexico and West Texas and drains an area of 9,790 km² (3,780 sq mi).

Lubbock Lake Landmark

Lubbock Lake Landmark, an important archeological site and natural history preserve, is located in a meander of Yellow House Draw in the city of Lubbock, Texas. Native Americans and early settlers of the Llano Estacado used the springs in the draw until they went dry in the early 1930s due to excessive pumping of the Ogallala Aquifer. In 1936, the City of Lubbock dredged the meander in an effort to make it a usable water supply. These efforts were unsuccessful, but brought to light the archeological significance of the site. Today, there is very little standing water and no actual lake but the site has become an important archeological landmark.

Canyon Lakes

Also within the city limits of Lubbock, the parks department has constructed a series of narrow lakes partly within Yellow House Draw and partly within Yellow House Canyon, collectively known as Jim Bertram Canyon Lakes System consisting of six lakes from northwest to southeast Conquistador Lake, Llano Estacado Lake, Comancheria Lake, Vaquero Lake, Canyon Lake, and Dunbar Historical Lake. Vaquero Lake and Canyon Lake lay within Mackenzie Park and it is at Vaquero Lake where Blackwater Draw and Yellowhouse Draw converge. The Canyon Lakes offer scenic views and recreational opportunities, and they also function as an essential part of Lubbock's wastewater disposal system. First, the city applies treated wastewater to crops at the Lubbock Land Application Site – a 6,000-acre (24 km²) site located east of the City of Lubbock. Here, 31 center pivot sprinkler systems are used to irrigate crops with 13 million gallons of treated effluent per day. The soils and sediments of the Land Application Site act as filters as the treated wastewater percolates through the soil. To minimize contamination of the Ogallala Aquifer, groundwater is then pumped from beneath the Land Application Site to Canyon Lakes, where the water flows from one lake to the next and eventually into Yellow House Canyon, forming the North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River.

See also

• Yellow House Canyon
• Blackwater Draw
• North Fork Double Mountain Fork Brazos River
• List of rivers of Texas
• Llano Estacado
• List of rivers of Texas

External links

• USGS Hydrologic Unit Map - State of Texas (1974)
• Photos of the Llano Estacado

• http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/huc.cfm?huc_code=12050001
• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Yellow House Draw
• http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/huc.cfm?huc_code=12050001
• United States Board on Geographical Names. 1964. Decisions on Geographical Names in the United States, Decision list no. 6402, United States Department of the Interior, Washington DC, p. 54.
• Seaber, P.R., Kapinos, F.P. and Knapp, G.L. 1987. Hydrological unit maps. United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 2294, p. 46.
• Lee, G. F. and Jones, R. A. 1991. Indirect reuse of domestic wastewater for recreational lakes: evaluation of the sanitary quality of the Yellowhouse Canyon Lakes, Lubbock, Texas. In: Proc. American Water Resources Association Symposium: Water Supply and Water Reuse: 1991 and Beyond. Bethesda, MD, pp. 435-449.