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Richwood urges water conservation
Published June 30, 2009
RICHWOOD — Richwood residents more than doubled water usage Sunday, causing the city to enact Phase 1 of its water conservation plan.
The plan, effective today, asks residents to alternate the days they water landscaped areas, with even-numbered addresses watering only on even-numbered dates, and odd-numbered addresses on odd-numbered dates, Richwood City Administrator Glenn Patton said.
“If folks don’t comply with this, as the days go on and the heat keeps on, it may have to become a mandatory thing,” Patton said. “Use a little sense, conserve and keep our water where we need it for the time being.”
Richwood residents normally use 250,000 gallons a day, but Saturday the city used 379,000 and about 632,000 gallons were used Sunday, Patton said.
“When the weekend hit us, as people really went to working in their yards and watering their yards, that’s when we went through the roof,” he said.
Over the weekend, Richwood switched to solely using its well water instead of receiving a portion of its water from the Brazosport Water Authority, but at 9 p.m. Sunday it resumed using the water authority’s water, Patton said.
“We had to go back to BWA water because our wells could not keep up,” he said.
Cities that use water from the Brazosport Water Authority are contracted to only use a certain amount of gallons and then draw from their well water systems, Patton said. Richwood is contracted to use only 235,000 gallons of water a day from the water authority and anything over that is made up by the city wells.
Those who would like to water their lawns are asked to wait until their assigned day then do so only between 8 p.m. and 6 p.m., and residents with automatic sprinklers are asked to use them only between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., he said.
Friday marked the first day for Phase 1 of Lake Jackson’s water conservation plan after residents there used 6.2 million gallons of water in one day.
Lake Jackson’s plan prohibits all unnecessary water usage, such as washing cars, boats, trailers, airplanes or any other vehicle, as well as filling swimming, wading or jacuzzi-type pools unless on designated water days, Public Works Director Craig Nisbett said.
Washing sidewalks, walkways, driveways, parking lots, tennis courts or other hard-surfaced areas, buildings or structures or flushing gutters is prohibited altogether, he said.
One day at 6.58 million gallons or three days of 6.2 million gallons would bump Lake Jackson’s conservation plan to Phase 2, Nisbett said.
“Saturday it was 6.1 million and Sunday it was 6.4 million,” Nisbett said. “It was still up over the weekend, but not enough to go to Phase 2 yet.”
Phase 2 of Richwood’s plan would prohibit all outdoor watering, including lawns, sprinklers, cars, driveways and anything else, rather than restricting it to certain days, Patton said. Phase 3 would stop use of all industrial and commercial watering that’s not essential for health and safety reasons.
“Hopefully we’ll never get to No. 3,” Patton said.
Pearland officials have asked residents to restrict their usage by watering lawns in the cooler times of the day, but most other Brazoria County cities are holding off calling for conservation.
Angleton City Manager Greg Smith said when water use exceeds 2.9 million gallons a day for three consecutive days, that city will start considering whether to ask residents to restrict use.
Erin McKeon is a reporter for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 237-0152.
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