{"id":8549,"date":"2012-04-13T09:25:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T14:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=8549"},"modified":"2012-04-13T10:40:33","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T15:40:33","slug":"texas-mayors-advocate-permanent-water-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/13\/texas-mayors-advocate-permanent-water-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayors Want Permanent H20 Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images<\/p>

Frequent lawn watering may soon become a thing of the past in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.<\/p><\/div>\n

While the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was the first major population center in Texas to become drought-free<\/a> this winter, it looks like they’re preparing for more droughts like the one that has baked the state over the last year and half. This week a coalition of four mayors in the region (representing Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth and Irving) announced their intention to enact permanent water restrictions in their cities<\/a> by this summer. This would mean residents could only water their lawns twice a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us to grow in our future, we\u2019ve got to have that water,\u201d Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said at an announcement Wednesday, according to local news reports<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe don\u2019t have enough water for those people. In less than 20 years, you talk about a deficit in Washington. We have a deficit right here in North Texas and it\u2019s water,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ken Kramer, Director of the Sierra Club in Texas, applauded the move in a statement Thursday.\u00a0\u201cAlthough this is only one measure in a series of potential water conservation practices that might be pursued, it is significant,” he said. “It demonstrates that the North Central Texas area \u2013 which has often been criticized for its heavy water use \u2013 is making progress in embracing a water conservation ethic.”<\/div>\n
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Dallas, Fort Worth and Irving are some of the top users of water per capita in the state<\/a>, making them prime subjects for conservation. But each city’s council still has to approve the permanent restrictions before they go into effect.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

El Paso has\u00a0had permanent water restrictions since 1991<\/a>. And\u00a0Austin may also be getting on the “dry is the new normal” bandwagon.\u00a0The city is piloting a program<\/a> that allocates a certain amount of water for lawn and landscape irrigation each month, as opposed to the current system of allocating certain days for it. Apartment complexes and commercial developments will be limited not by days of the week for watering, but by a finite limit of water. If the plan goes well, it may be expanded.<\/p>\n

In Texas, agriculture uses more water than anything else<\/a>, making up 56\u00a0percent\u00a0of the state’s water demand. Municipal use, for cities like Dallas and Fort Worth, makes up 27 percent. But the balance will shift in the coming years<\/a>. The state water plan<\/a> predicts that by 2060, municipal demand will outgrow agricultural. And nearly a quarter of the new water supplies for Texas over that time are projected to come from conservation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can learn more about the drought at our new interactive webpage,\u00a0Dried Out: Confronting the Texas Drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was the first major population center in Texas to become drought-free this winter, it looks like they’re preparing for more droughts like the one that has baked the state over the last year and half. This week a coalition of four mayors in the region (representing Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":8551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,140,85],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549"}],"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=8549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8611,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549\/revisions\/8611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}