Following the failure of two filters at the Lewisville Lake water treatment facility, the city of Denton released a second notice last week asking residents to reduce water usage to avoid triggering Stage 2 drought conditions.
Under the city’s drought contingency plan, drought conditions can be met either due to the availability of water or the ability to produce or treat water.
Denton has been under Stage 1 drought conditions since a water filter failed at the Lewisville Lake water treatment facility on July 26, reducing the city’s ability to treat water.
After damage to a second filter, the city’s ability to treat water was once again decreased, this time hitting the threshold to trigger Stage 2 drought conditions.
Stage 2 drought conditions must persist for three straight days for the city to enforce additional restrictions. To avoid this, the city urged residents to cut back on water usage once again.
“There’s a lot of things we can do, but it’s not our intention to be punitive. It’s about education for the community and working in partnership with them to achieve our goal,” Stephen Gay, the city’s director of water facilities, told the Denton Record-Chronicle.
“We don’t want to restrict [residents] from watering their lawns, we don’t want their plants to die, we don’t want any of that stuff, and we definitely don’t want to fine people or cite people or raise the rates on their water bill during that period of time, but those are all features in the drought ordinance ... [which] gives us the ability to.”
Under the current Stage 1 drought restrictions, residents are urged to stick to a twice-a-week watering schedule and avoid unnecessary water use when possible. Stage 2 drought restrictions would take this a step further, enforcing a once-a-week watering schedule with fines ranging from $250 to $2,000 for each instance of nonessential water usage.
So what are the chances that Denton reaches Stage 2 drought conditions this year? Gay says that while there are several factors to consider, chances are relatively low.
Most of the water use during summer months comes from outdoor water usage, and with several weeks of triple-digit temperatures ahead of us, people are likely to use more water.
On the other hand, the lakes around Denton are at full capacity, and residents responded strongly to calls from the city’s water utilities, reducing water usage 4 million gallons below the threshold. With repairs to the water facilities beginning Aug. 20, Gay believes the community will be able to curtail water use until repairs are complete.
The city is currently working to expand its Lake Ray Roberts Water Treatment Plant by improving water treatment at the existing facility and building an entirely new treatment plant with new technology to diversify treatment types. When the upgrades are complete, Denton’s ability to treat water will improve from a current total of 48 million gallons per day to 100 million gallons per day.