(CNN) -- The recent drought has ruined millions of acres of farmland in Texas, turning lakes into mud puddles, but in the East Texas city of Nacogdoches, authorities say, the drought may have done something good: Unearthed a piece of the space shuttle Columbia. 
 
 The object, which is about 4 feet in diameter, was found in a local lake. NASA says it is a tank that provides power and water for shuttle missions. 
 
 "It's one of ours," said Lisa Malone, a spokeswoman for the agency. 
 
 Malone added that NASA is trying to develop a plan to recover the item, but it could take weeks to get it. 
 
 "We're looking into whether we'll send a team out or local authorities can," Malone said. 
 
 Authorities say the object was found after the drought caused the waters to recede in Lake Nacogdoches, and they notified representatives from NASA on Friday. 
 
 "The lower water level has exposed a larger than normal area on the northern side of the lake," said Sgt. Greg Sowell of the Nacogdoches Police Department. 
 
 The item is full of mud and is in a remote area near a private shoreline, Sowell said. 
 
 Nacogdoches made headlines in 2003 when debris from the shuttle Columbia disaster was found there. 
 
 The spacecraft broke up while re-entering Earth's atmosphere near the end of its mission on February 1, 2003. 
 
 "We want to remind everyone that the rules are the same as they were back in 2003. If this object is indeed a part of the shuttle, it is government property, and it is a criminal offense to tamper with it," Sowell said. 
 
 CNN's Dave Alsup contributed to this report. 

 This tank from the space shuttle Columbia, which was destroyed during re-entry to Earth in 2003, was found in 2011 in east Texas. 
 
 A piece of debris from NASA's space shuttle Columbia has been discovered in Texas, eight years after the 2003 disaster that destroyed the spacecraft and killed its seven-astronaut crew during re-entry, NASA officials confirmed today (Aug. 2). 
 
 The debris was discovered last week in eastern Texas. It is a round aluminum power reactant storage and distribution tank from Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere near the end of a 16-day science mission. 
 
 The tank was discovered in an exposed area of Lake Nacogdoches, in Nacogdoches, Texas, about 160 miles northeast of Houston. [Photos: Remembering NASA's Shuttle Columbia Disaster] 
 
 "The only reason it's exposed is because there's a drought going on and the tank was under the lake," Lisa Malone, a NASA spokeswoman at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, told SPACE.com. "The tank itself is full of mud." 
 
 Nacogdoches police informed NASA of the find and sent pictures for identification. NASA engineers who work on the shuttle's power reactant storage and distribution systems were able to confirm the piece belonged to Columbia. [Columbia Tank Finding Explained ] 
 
 "One of the guys had been here more than 30 years and recognized it, and said, 'That’s one of the tanks,'" Malone said. 
 
 The piece was one of 18 tanks on the shuttle that stored supercold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The spherical tank, about 40 inches (1 meter) in diameter, will eventually be shipped back to Kennedy Space Center, where NASA stores all the collected debris from Columbia in a climate controlled area in the giant Vehicle Assembly Building. 
 
 "We're working the plans and details out right now as to how we would get it shipped back here," Malone said. "We do want to collect the debris items and keep them in one place." 
 
 To date, about 38-40 percent of the Columbia orbiter's wreckage has been recovered. The remainder was either burned up during reentry or is still where it landed in Texas and Louisiana. 
 
 "From time to time throughout the year we do get phone calls and emails from people about items they think are debris," Malone said. 
 
 The 2003 disaster was traced back to a hole that was punched into one of Columbia's wings by a piece of debris from its fuel tank during launch, according to the findings of a review board that investigated the accident. The hole rendered the orbiter unable to withstand the intense heat of re-entry, causing the vehicle to disintegrate. 
 
 Discoveries of debris from the wreck can still serve to reopen old wounds. 
 
 "It always makes you think about the accident and Columbia and the crew of course," Malone said. "It always does serve as a reminder." 
 
 This image of the STS-107 shuttle Columbia crew in orbit was recovered from wreckage inside an undeveloped film canister. The shirt colors indicate their mission shifts. From left (bottom row): Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; Rick Husband, commander; Laurel Clark, mission specialist; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist. From left (top row) are astronauts David Brown, mission specialist; William McCool, pilot; and Michael Anderson, payload commander. Ramon represents the Israeli Space Agency. Credit: NASA/JSC 
 
 Columbia was carrying commander Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, and Laurel Clark, payload commander Michael Anderson, and payload specialist Ilan Ramon, who was Israel's first astronaut. 
 
 Following the catastrophe, NASA upgraded equipment and processes to protect against a similar failure. All post-Columbia shuttles flew with external tanks that had been redesigned to diminish the amount of debris from their insulating foam that fell off during liftoff. 
 
 As a further precaution, recent crews conducted thorough inspections of their orbiters' heat shields once in orbit to make sure they hadn't sustained any damage that would endanger them during landing. 
 
 The Columbia accident was the second disaster in the history of the 30-year space shuttle program. It followed the 1986 destruction of the shuttle Challenger and its crew. Exceptionally cold weather at Challenger's Florida launch site that day caused a failure in an O-ring seal on one of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters that ultimately pulled apart the vehicle. 
 
 Last month NASA retired its remaining three space shuttle orbiters. The shuttle Atlantis landed July 21 to finish the 135th and final mission of the shuttle program. Now Atlantis and its siblings Discovery and Endeavour will be retired to museums, while NASA embarks on a new program to build vehicles for deep space exploration.
– A piece of the space shuttle Columbia has been discovered in an east Texas lake, report CNN and Space.com. The shuttle broke up when re-entering the atmosphere in 2003, killing its seven-person crew. The newly-discovered part is a tank 4 feet in diameter that contributed power and water to the shuttle, says a NASA rep. The part was discovered after a drought lowered the lake’s water level, said authorities from the city of Nacogdoches, where other material from the ship has been found.