DFW needs rain to avoid tougher water rules

Rain is in the forecast and hope is in the air that El Niño will bring more wet stuff to Texas this winter.

But if the rains don’t come, tougher watering restrictions could be on the way next year.

The Tarrant Regional Water District, which provides raw water to 98 percent of Tarrant County, is at 61 percent capacity.

Stage 2 restrictions are triggered when the district’s overall lake capacity falls to 60 percent. Without rain, the district could reach that level in January.

Linda Christie, the district’s community and government relations director, said the water district will take its time before enacting once-a-week outdoor-watering restrictions.

“We’re going to spend the month of January meeting with our customers,” Christie said. “Even though we may hit 60 percent, the water district is not going to immediately trigger Stage 2. We really want to have our customers on board.”

Outdoor watering drops in winter and rises again during the spring planting season.

The Fort Worth City Council was briefed on the possibility of tougher restrictions at its Tuesday pre-council session.

City Water Department spokeswoman Mary Gugliuzza said the department wanted to update the possibility that the enhanced restrictions could happen next year.

“We’re having discussions with our wholesale customers and other major customers with the district about what that Stage 2 will look like,” Gugliuzza said. “We are just closely monitoring the situation.”

The water district’s lakes haven’t been as low as 60 percent since December 1980, and that was before the Richland-Chambers Reservoir in East Texas was completed in 1989.

One of the challenges of going to Stage 2 is that thresholds must be met to lift the rules. The lakes must climb back to 75 percent or stay above 70 percent for 30 consecutive days.

The good news: Forecasters say there’s a good chance of rain Sunday.

“We could certainly see some beneficial rainfall,” National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Stalley said. “We are kind of entering a more active pattern in the next week to 10 days or so. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee widespread rainfall.”

In its latest update, released Monday, the Climate Prediction Center cited a 65 percent chance that El Niño conditions will be present and last into the spring. El Niño forms when sea-surface temperatures are above normal off the Pacific coast in South America, which tends to bring wetter weather to Texas. Over the last four weeks, sea surface temperatures have been above normal.

“If that is able to persist, it means there are at least a couple of months where we might have slightly above-normal rainfall,” Stalley said. “Then again, winter is unfortunately one of our driest seasons. Saying we will be above normal during those months may not amount to much.”

This story was originally published December 10, 2014 at 1:44 PM with the headline "DFW needs rain to avoid tougher water rules."