{"id":35699,"date":"2014-04-02T11:46:59","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T16:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=35699"},"modified":"2014-04-02T11:46:59","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T16:46:59","slug":"when-it-comes-to-water-restrictions-how-far-should-fort-worth-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/04\/02\/when-it-comes-to-water-restrictions-how-far-should-fort-worth-go\/","title":{"rendered":"When It Comes To Water Restrictions, How Far Should Fort Worth Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Perth<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo by Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

From KERA News:\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n

Update 10 p.m. Tuesday:\u00a0<\/strong>The Fort Worth City Council has delayed for one week a vote to permanently restrict outdoor watering to twice a week.<\/p>\n

Council member W. B. Zimmerman asked for the additional time to educate the public about proposed conservation plans.<\/p>\n

Sal Espino, who represents District 2, was opposed to the delay. He said: “I would be in favor of moving forward with this ordinance, imperfect as it may seem to some, and then later changing it or tweaking, because we’ve already been doing twice per week watering.”<\/p>\n

Original story:\u00a0<\/strong>Since last June, Fort Worth has been restricting outdoor watering to twice a week because of drought conditions. Those measures may become permanent if the City Council adopts a proposed water ordinance Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

But as water usage is down, water rates are going up.<\/p>\n

Fort Worth has been using less water in the last 14 years, thanks to education and more efficient appliances. In fact, customers bought $11 million less water last year, says Mary Gugliuzza with the city\u2019s water department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat $11 million we didn\u2019t sell is 3.7 billion gallons we didn\u2019t use,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the restrictions did what they were supposed to do — they saved water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fort Worth gets water from six lakes. And they are at low levels, or below normal. Because there hasn\u2019t been enough rainfall, and the city is experiencing growth — 37,000 people moved into Fort Worth last year — water is limited. Fort Worth is currently enforcing Stage 1 water restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anybody wants to get down to Stage 2, and only once a week, mandatory watering once a week,\u201d Gugliuzza said. \u201cBut if we get to Stage 2, we\u2019re also going to tell you the day to do it. If we get down to 45 percent left in our reservoirs, there is no outdoor watering, at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside a water treatment plant<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over at the Eagle Mountain Lake Water treatment plant, north of downtown Fort Worth, Gugliuzza explains that the price of raw water has increased because old pipes need to be replaced,\u00a0new pipes need to be built, and untreated water has to be cleaned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the waters have gone through the ozone chamber, we add chemicals in a series of basins,\u201d she explained. \u201c[They\u2019re] mixed rather rapidly \u2013 [then the] mixing gets slower. But then we need to slow it down, so those particles begin to form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the mixing is completed, the water flows into what’s called sedimentation basins \u2013 and, eventually, unwanted particles are filtered out. Hours after disinfection and the addition of fluoride, the water is distributed to more than 30 communities over 2,400 miles of pipeline.<\/p>\n

The cost of maintaining and transporting that water is rising — and that concerns Fort Worth council member Jungus Jordan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWater is one of those requirements that government has to provide to our citizens, and in that role, we have a responsibility to make sure we\u2019re doing the right thing with our infrastructure to make that water available, and at the lowest prices possible, with the minimal impact on our citizens\u2019 lives,\u201d Jordan said.<\/p>\n

On the fence about permanent restrictions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jordan says local government shouldn\u2019t be telling residents how or when to water their lawns. Instead, he wants the city to look at 60-year-old water lines that are breaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am strongly supportive of conservation measures, but I want to see that we the city are following our own rules, repairing infrastructure \u2026 investing in that infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why he\u2019s on the fence about supporting the proposed ordinance to make water restrictions permanent in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a common sense approach to this. We don\u2019t need to spend a lot of money going around to enforce restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Paul Kane\/Getty Images From KERA News:\u00a0 Update 10 p.m. Tuesday:\u00a0The Fort Worth City Council has delayed for one week a vote to permanently restrict outdoor watering to twice a week. Council member W. B. Zimmerman asked for the additional time to educate the public about proposed conservation plans. Sal Espino, who represents District […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35699"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35702,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35699\/revisions\/35702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}