City asking residents to conserve water in Katy

In recent weeks, the city of Katy has been pumping too much water from its depleted wells; so for the first time since 2011, the municipality is asking residents and local businesses to voluntarily conserve water until drought conditions improve.

The city’s request, posted Aug. 11 in the news section on its website at www.cityofkaty.com, asks residents to irrigate properties before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m. and to check for water leaks in and around their homes. In recent weeks, the city has pumped about 2 million more gallons of water each day over its average of around 3 million.

“We’re hoping for more rain right now, because people won’t irrigate as often if that happens,” said Elaine Lutringer, the city’s director of the public works. “We haven’t had this type of recordbreaking heat index in a long time.”

Despite the onslaught of rain

earlier in the summer, the Houston area has been under a heat advisory multiple times in recent weeks as the heat index has soared into triple digits for sustained periods.

Well being maintained

Katy is down to five water wells because its sixth has been undergoing maintenance for three weeks, Lutringer said. Normally, the six wells are able to pump about 8.2 million gallons per day throughout the city, but with five, the daily supply goes down to 7.2 million gallons.

Since July 13, the amount of water the city has pumped has steadily increased to an average of 5.2 million gallons per day, with a worrisome 6.2 million peak on Aug. 9, prompting the city to post the notice and issue email messages and calls to residents.

The recent 5.2 million-gallons-per-day average matches the city’s previous high recorded in 2011, when the state was in the grips of a longtime drought.

As of Aug. 11, the U.S. Drought Monitor described the greater Houston area as being in a “moderate drought” after having no drought signs in July, though Jeff Lindner, Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist, said the drought shouldn’t persist.

“It’s not going to be anything like 2011 when we saw a long period of drought,” Lindner said. “A complete lack of rain with high heat caused the current drought, but weather patterns are already showing rain to come that will break the recent heat wave.”

Water pumping higher

Because of Katy’s steep population growth in recent years, water pumping has increased; so the city is planning to drill another well within the next year that will increase pumping capability to roughly 9 million gallons of water per day, Lutringer said.

Until the sixth well opens in a couple of weeks, an emergency situation would only happen if the drought persists and water continues to be pumped at the same level from Katy’s water sources, but City Administrator Byron Hebert said he’s not concerned because the city has never had to go beyond voluntary water conservation even in the worst drought.

“Our water system is pretty well and we have plenty of capacity on the ground,” Hebert said.

“The city has been doing our part by cutting our irrigation down with our facilities and doing a lot of hand watering, which evaporates less than sprinkling. Every drop counts, and we’ll be putting up signs around town.”

The city has already seen some improvement since posting the notice, as Lutringer said on Tuesday that the city pumped about 4 million gallons on Monday.