Emergency water restrictions prohibit most outdoor watering, add boil water notice in Reno
The small town of Reno in northeast Parker County is facing emergency watering restrictions because high water use and a lack of rain are depleting the city’s storage tanks, officials said.
According to a July 11 letter, Reno’s water consumption reached 90% of the available amount for three consecutive weeks and the city couldn’t replenish the storage to capacity.
The Stage 5 restrictions include no outdoor watering with sprinklers or irrigation systems, no hosing down buildings or surfaces unless for health and safety reasons such as fire protection, no washing vehicles, no filling indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and no flushing gutters or permitting water to run in gutters or streets.
According to the Azle News, the situation is even worse because the city is also under a boil water notice because of a broken water line, low water pressure and “mixing of water.”
On Monday, the city council held a special meeting and voted to extend the Stage 5 drought contingency measures.
City Administrator Scott Passmore said during Monday’s council meeting that people ignored his requests to conserve water, the Azle News reported.
“I begged and we pleaded with people to quit watering. They wouldn’t do it, so we put them on Stage 5,” he said.
Passmore told the council that one of the city’s wells is out of commission because of a broken pump motor, and the other wells have slowed down because they are “worn out.” It will take around five months to replace the broken part for the well.