Texas city strictly limits water consumption as thousands across state face water shortages
Texas city strictly limits water consumption as thousands across state face water shortages
Thousands of people in Texas are at risk of their public water systems running out of water in 45 days or less while even more are experiencing water service interruptions.
A small Texas city west of Austin remains under tight water restrictions amid a significant drought. After days of being at the highest emergency level for water conservation, officials said Monday that those restrictions have only slightly been loosened, limiting water consumption to "indoor use only" until further notice.
Texas: no water and AC in the summer, no heat and electricity in the winter
61As an outsider, can I ask why is there no ac in summer, nor electric in winter there?
5As an outsider I assume it's because their 'independant' (read: under-regulated) power grid collapses every time all that stuff turns on.
6Recently we had an exceptionally cold winter staying below freezing for multiple days. Since winter is usually fairly temperate with most days having lows in the 40s (I usually only use the heater at night and have windows open during the day). and only going a degree or two below freezing for a couple of hours, a lot of houses here are not particularly suited to cold weather. We have fairly inefficient resistive electric heat in many houses, and pipes are not particularly well insulated for cold weather.
It got well below freezing for a couple of days, and already several power plants were shut down for maintenance since winter is typically low demand. Anyway, all of this combined to result in the grid being overloaded, doing rolling blackouts, and then peoples pipes froze as well because of that.
Also the Texas power grid is isolated from the other US grids so importing power is not an option.
Since then I have noticed a lot more solar farms, mini natural gas peaker plants/backup generators and other upgrades being put in on backroads when I go for a motorcycle ride.
3
Nothing in the article about agricultural use.
If I’m reading their USDA census data correctly, over 2/3 of the entire county is used for farming (336,688 acres). Of which 79% is pastureland.
17I also wonder whether that city has any golf courses. If so, it's almost guaranteed that they'll be exempt too
9The city is saying no outdoor use at all: https://m.facebook.com/blancocityhall?fref=nf&ref=embed_post
2
But what about the lawns?!
6Water restrictions vary by city, but landscape irrigation is indeed restricted. Usually they go up to stage 4, which typically limits to watering once a week or once every 2 weeks.
Apparently stage 5 is defined by the city as indoor use only: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/city-of-blanco-stage-6-water-restrictions/269-22171b66-f29b-4e1a-b57a-9e434ecf34c1
Blanco county is currently at stage 3, which limits watering from 7-10 AM or PM and not at all on non-watering weeks. https://www.txwaterco.com/water-conservation/drought-management/blanco-county-drought-conditions
Interestingly, they include hand watering in the restrictions. My city has designated days and times you are allowed to water, but hand watering is allowed at any time.
6
Insanity. And they keep building more homes.
4Texas legislature outlawing local water restrictions in 3, 2, 1...
3That would be extreme even for Texas. Texas has laws in place to prevent HOAs from prohibiting water conservation efforts such as xeriscaping, growing native grasses instead of exotic, rain barrels, etc. Most of Texas undergoes drought restrictions already. If we didn't, we would certainly run out of water. Banning water conservation would be stupid even by Texas standards.
Granted, Texas also does stupid shit such as restricting water usage in communities while pumping out that same water to sell to 3rd parties.
3