Drought Could Lead to Water Restrictions

If no significant rain soon, watering habits could have to change.

The Tarrant Regional Water District has four reservoirs and right now they're at 78% capacity Communications Manager Chad Lorance told NBC 5 on Sunday.

If the capacity drops to 75 percent the TRWD would impose some water restrictions.  If we don't get rain soon, that could happen in January.

It would like do what the North Texas Municipal Water District has been doing since August, limiting sprinkler use to twice a week.  To go beyond that, things would have to get much worse.

"We haven't had any good rainfall in a good while," said Don Wiggins who runs a bait shop at Eagle Mountain Lake, one of the four reservoirs for the Tarrant Regional Water District.  "I watch the beach up there, the markers, like the ladders, the steps on the ladders and we're losing a lot of water.  It keeps going down every day... I've seen it worse, but it's been a while since I've seen it like this."

Looking ahead to the winter and into next spring, meteorologists aren't expecting a lot of rain.

The Tarrant Regional Water District provides water to more than 1.7 million people in the North Texas, including the cities of Fort Worth, Arlington and Mansfield.

The North Texas Municipal Water District provides water to the following cities: Allen,
Farmersville, Forney, Frisco, Garland, McKinney, Mesquite, Plano, Princeton, Richardson, Rockwall, Royse City and Wylie.

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