Council approves two-day watering schedule, new drought plan
Changes to the City’s water use requirements ordinance go into effect May 8. City Council approved amendments to two ordinances related to water conservation at its April 23 meeting.
The changes update the City’s water use requirements ordinance to make the current two-day watering schedule for irrigation systems and hose-end sprinklers the permanent watering schedule.
The new, permanent two-day watering schedule for irrigation systems and hose-end sprinklers is based on the last digit of customers’ street address.
| Address ends in: | May water these days: |
| 1, 5, 9 | Tue. and/or Fri. |
| 2, 4, 6, 8 | Wed. and/or Sat. |
| 0, 3, 7 | Thu. and/or Sun. |
The two-day schedule spreads watering over six days each week in order to balance demand on the water system. Irrigation is not permitted on Mondays. Monday is reserved as a recovery and maintenance day for the system.
Watering with an irrigation system or hose-end sprinkler should not be done between the hours of noon to 7 p.m. each day. Watering with hose-end sprinklers must comply with the new schedule. Use of a hand-held hose or bucket can be any day and at any time. Other outdoor water uses such as vehicle washing or filling a swimming pool can be done any day at any time.
Violations of the irrigation schedule may result in fines.
Drought Contingency Plan
A second ordinance change that is effective May 8 updated the city’s Drought Contingency Plan to reflect new triggers for additional watering restrictions based on drought conditions. The plan calls for mandatory one-day per week watering schedule for all customers when certain triggers are met. Those triggers are tied to the City’s water treatment capacity, the volume of Lake Georgetown and Lake Stillhouse Hollow, and a variety of other factors.
Rebates
The City is offering three new rebates for customers to improve the efficiency of their irrigation systems. Customers can receive $150 in rebates for each of the following programs: changing their irrigation system from a spray system to a drip system, converting spray nozzles to multi-stream nozzles, or installing a wi-fi enabled “smart” controller to help irrigation systems run more efficiently.
Please visit gus.georgetown.org/water/rebate for more information.
A reminder to all customers: #NoWateringMonday. Monday is a recovery day for the water treatment, storage, and distribution system.
