Anyone on water restrictions?

[EweSheep]

With CNN going on, so many cities are on water restrictions!!!

In our town of Decatur, IL, we are on mandatory water restrictions. No watering lawns, driveways or washing cars! Nothing said for washing clothes and bathing. All resturants do not serve water at the time of seating unless the customer orders water.

Our lake is about low as it did back in 1988. Most of the boat docks are dried up and moved out. I am not certain how many feet we are behind but weatherman said we need about a good four inches or more of rain to fill up Lake Decatur.....

Our fines are 200 dollars for the first time and 500 second time and 1000 dollars and water cut off at the third time. So far our neighborhood has not watered their lawn yet......

Anyone else is facing water shortage or restrictions?????

 

[speckledhen]

We have a 400+ ft deep well and are hoping it doesn't go dry. I believe that all of Ga is on a mandatory water ban, but since it doesn't apply to well owners, I dont keep up. We aren't big water users anyway. Didn't even try to keep the garden alive this year because of being cautious about the well.

 

[seminolewind]

I live in Florida and we have a water restriction, only once a week, specific hours. I did get caught, and got a 40.00 fine. We have a well and it makes no difference.

 

[speckledhen]

You mean they are telling you that you can't use your own well?

 

[arlee453]

The great metropolis of Concord, NC is on mandatory restrictions - one step below the maximum restrictions, which are basically is reserved for emergency/disaster/terror attack.

No outside watering at all and business must cut by 30%.

I have made several changes in our house this year, not just because of water usage, but it has definately helped us!

First, I replaced both toilets in the house with low flush toilets. Our old toilets were notorious for stopping up, so I was a little nervous about going low-flow, but the new toilets have been great.

Secondly, I replaced the shower head in our bathroom with a hand-held sprayer with a 6' hose. Primary motivation was to get a sprayer to make bathing the dogs and kids easier, but added benefit was it really restricts water flow as compared to the old showerhead. The fact that it's a sprayer now, as well as has good 'massage' setting makes up for the reduced water flow. I have a 2nd one sitting here on my desk waiting to be installed in the kids' bathroom now...

Last, we got rid of our old washing machine (it croaked) and replaced with a front loading machine. With 6 people in our family, I got the LARGEST one I could buy. It uses SOOOOO much less water. The sales person said that traditional machine uses about 40-60 gal per load, but this new one uses less than 20.

Proof is in the pudding, right?? Our average water bill has dropped from about $28/month to about $20 - almost a 1/3 reduction!

We did get some good rain yesterday, but now we're back on a dry spell... we REALLY need some good winter rain to fill up our resevoirs!

 

[bamagirl68]

Can you believe here in dry, drought stricken Alabama we are not on restrictions yet? The lake (Lake Martin)which was featured on The Weather Channel last week has all but dried up. It is already at 4 feet(I think) below winter pool. And it is still around 80 degrees here most days! Our Governor is trying his best to get us more water. But we really need to be on mandatory restrictions!!

I don't want to be without ANY water this winter! The cold weather is bad enough!

 

[EweSheep]

Arlee, you did some smart things to save water! Little did we take for granted on saving water on our common useages on washers, water heaters, watering livestock, etc.

I got a 14 year old stackable washer dryer from Sears and its still a nice washer but I have a feeling it will croak one of these days! It is not as big as the regular washer but nice!

Bamagirl, I do recall that on the news and it shocked me that you guys have not been on water restriction yet. Alabama and Mississippi and parts of GA are really hurting bad!

I have been hearing some of the farmers in our area, their wells are getting low.....but their livestock water wells and some unused wells are doing fine.

Hope it rains everywhere because we sure need it!

 

[EweSheep]

Wind, you should not be fined for using your own well....jeez! City water usage, I can understand that.....

If that water, they fined you with, you ought to go back and contest the charges....I believe that well water owners are extempt from the rules of restrictions....

 

[chickbea]

No restrictions here (we have a well), but it sure was a strange summer. We never got any really hot weather, but not much rain either. The main river through the valley was barely a trickle.
Lawns barely held on (hardly anyone waters their lawn around here), gardens were hard to keep going, and a lot of the corn fields were turning crunchy towards August. Most of my annual flowers died while I was on vacation

.

 

[rooster-red]

Our county is home to the East Point reservoir, which feeds water to much of the city of Atlanta.

We have the worst fines for watering in the state, we have active patrols out looking for people breaking the restrictions and neighbors are turning each other in like crazy.

The draught has almost put a complete stop to construction, landscaping,etc..
All car washes are closed, everybody is driving dirty cars.

There is a huge legal battle going on between GA and FL over water rights from the Chattahoochee river (and this is NOT a topic for debate here!)

I'm on a well and am not restricted, however this means if it runs dry there will be no help for us from local agencies, so we are policing ourselves.

Its BAD people... We need rain!!