The city of Lewisville is asking residents to reduce their water use so the city can avoid a potential water emergency.
"Conservation right now especially with this is heat is the most important, and we don't wan to tax our water system," said Andy Barbara, chief code enforcement officer for the city of Lewisville. The biggest concern comes from outdoor irrigation and people watering their property.
"In Lewisville's case, we’re seeing twice the amount, in terms of usage of that outdoor irrigation aspect of it," said Kelly Rouse, the utility manager for the city of Lewisville. “Landscaping, lawns, and that’s not just residents, that’s also businesses, multifamily.”
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Currently, single-family homes, depending on the address, can only water twice a week before 10 a.m. and after 6 p.m.
“Most of these rules and regulations are coming from the upper trinity water authority and the city is enforcing it," said Barbara.
Those who violate the rules, they'll receive an orange notice on their door as a warning. He said within the last two days, they've sent out 125 notices and usually, people comply after the warning.
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"Brown grass is better than dry faucets," said a news release from the city.
Rouse said at the water treatment facility, supply is not the issue since they pump water in from Lake Lewisville and treat it. He said it's the demand.
“This plant is rated for 20.5 million gallons of production capacity per day and if we’re pushing it 20.5 gallons and the demand is 25, that’s going to be difficult to bridge that gap. So we want to make sure that in order for water to be available for everybody, we want to make sure we’re hitting our capacity, if not a little lower than our full capacity for delivery, just in terms of summer demands and meeting the summer needs," he explained.
Rouse said it's not just the extremely hot weather and drought that's contributing to the need to conserve water, but said it's the population growth, which creates more demand for services.
“Growth is absolutely huge, building or acquiring new supplies is incredibly difficult, it's exacerbated by the consecutive days of triple-digit heat in Texas, said Rouse.
