By N. Bradford
If the ongoing drought continues into September, Pearland will likely go to Stage 2 of its drought plan, city officials say.
“People want to keep their yards alive and we understand that” City Manager Trent Epperson said during an Aug. 23 update. “That takes a lot of water.”
Due to sparse rain and record heat, Pearland has been in Stage 1 of its drought plan for several weeks. This voluntary stage requests that residents limit watering to the days they receive garbage service and water only at night.
“As the drought went on, we started to see usage tick up and up and up to the point we enacted stage 1 of our drought contingency plan,” he said. “We do see a littler moderation but as the drought continues to drag on, we continue to see usage move up.”
Personnel in charge of water production are closely monitoring water supplies daily, Epperson said.
A few areas received some rain during the past week, but this “by no means” ends the drought, he said.
“We did see a drop in usage just based on that short bit of rain,” he said, adding that this will likely keep the city from going to Stage 2 for a bit longer.
Stage 2 is similar to Stage 1, except the restrictions are mandatory vs. voluntary.
“If we do have repeat offenders we have enforcement mechanisms,” he said.
