Waco officials Monday asked residents to cut back on their water use, taking the first step of the city’s drought contingency plan.

A water utilities spokesman said the city’s action is in response to a letter from the Texas Commission on Environmental that called on water suppliers statewide to conserve.

“We’re in a better position than a lot of other parts of the state, but there’s also a lot more water use now than in the past,” said the water utilities spokesman, Jonathan Echols.

A sprinkler wets an Austin Avenue lawn in early June.
Jerry Larson / Waco Tribune-Herald

According to an agency tally, the utility’s customers used an average of 34 million gallons of water a day last June and are averaging 43 million gallons a day this year. The daily averages are up for each of the past five months.

“Right now, this is a call for people to voluntarily reduce so we don’t have to go into any mandatory restrictions later,” Echols said.

The city also sent letters to its wholesale buyers, including cities like Hewitt, Lacy Lakeview, West and Woodway, which will trigger voluntary conservation measures in those cities.

Water restrictions are not a death sentence for area lawns, according to Jan Serface, president of McLennan County Master Gardeners, who added some wasteful water practices don’t even have a positive benefit on lawns.

One of her pet peeves is lawn sprinklers on in the middle of the day, she said.

“That water evaporates,” Serface said. “It just doesn’t help at all.”

The best time to water a lawn is between midnight and 10 a.m., Serface said.

Serface also urged people to turn off their sprinkler system’s automatic timer. Too many households water every few days, regardless of whether the yard needs it, she said.

People should monitor their yards instead, Serface said.

One trick is to walk across it and look for footprints. If none are visible, the yard doesn’t need water, she said.

Last month, Serface said, she only watered her lawn every five to six days. 

“You can’t tell any difference between us and the neighbors who water all the time,” said Serface, who lives in Waco.

As a bonus conservation measure, Serface recommended people place a container in their home’s showers to catch water that would otherwise be wasted as they let the temperature get to the desired level. That water can be used in a yard or garden, she said.

Rusty Black, director of the city’s parks and recreation department, said the water restriction will apply to city-owned green spaces, too.

According to the National Weather Service, the Waco area is more than 6 inches below its rainfall average for the year.

“McLennan County is kind of split between extreme and exceptional drought,” said spokesman Dennis Cavanaugh, who works in the weather service’s Fort Worth office.

The exceptional category, which is the worst drought category and more severe than extreme, applies to the areas of the county stretching south and west from Waco.

“There’s a chance of tropical moisture at the end of the week, which will keep our temperatures a little cooler,” Cavanaugh said.

He cautioned it’s too early to predict where or how much rain might fall with the weather development.

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

757-5707

cculp@wacotrib.com

757-5744