Speaking with the media Monday morning, Aug. 24 at the City Council Chambers, Amarillo City Manager Grayson Path, gave an update on the city's implementation of Stage One of the Drought Contingency Plan.

"As everyone is aware, Amarillo has experienced an extended period of triple digit temperatures with little to no precipitation," Path said. "These hot, dry conditions have increased water demand throughout our community."

"We are asking our residents, businesses and institutions to help us reduce water use wherever possible and to follow a voluntary outdoor watering schedule," he added.

The schedule for voluntary watering is as follows:

Off numbered addresses water on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays

Even numbered addresses water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

All residents are asked to water lawns between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and no more than three times a week.

"We all know that since June, we've had 34 days with temperatures over 100 degrees," Assistant City Manager Donny Hooper said. "To compare that with a typical summer, we normally have about five days over 100 degrees. As far as precipitation, we have had 4.63 inches of precipitation since January .... and if you compare it with previous years, or the normal, that about 9.37 inches below what the normal is."

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"Last summer at this time, we had 16.8 inches of rain, compared to 4.63 inches, so obviously we're dry, " Hooper said.

Hooper said that the city of Amarillo has a reservoir and can only recover during those high-demand periods on a five-day range.

"We do a pretty good job of being able to recovering the reservoir with no problem," Hooper said. "But 34 days over 100 degrees has increased our demand, along with a significant rainfall shortage. Coupled with that, that means our high rate has continued day after day, leaving us less opportunity to recover the reservoir."

Hooper said that they issued Stage One Drought Contingency plan on Aug. 17 and were hoping for some voluntary cooperation. They hoped to see the demand go down, so that they could begin to recover the reservoir.

"We began reducing our water that day with water schedules in our city parks, irrigation systems, golf courses, following all the recommendations of the Stage One voluntary restrictions," Hooper said.

But instead of a reduction, Amarillo has seen an increase in the demand of water after the Stage One plan was released.

"I want people to think about our reservoir as a savings account," Hooper said. "It's a 500 million gallon reservoir that's intended to supply water for our customers when we have those high demand days."

"More than our daily allowance from the Canadian Water Municipal Authority (CRMWA) or if we have a system failure on the CRMWA line, we would have an adequate supply of water that we could continue to move to our system until those repairs have been made," Hooper explained.

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He said that CRMWA continues to deliver the same amount of water they've always delivered, but with the extremely hot, dry days, communities are using water faster than they can recover.

"Because we're seeing an uptick on our levels, the City Manager made a decision to order further action last Friday, which included cutting the irrigation of city parks, municipal buildings along with splash pads in the city parks," Hooper said.

Hooper said the city was down to 60% when they issued the first phase, but they are now recovered only to about 54%, so they were appealing to the public for extra conservation — particularly commercial customers and properties with large irrigation systems, as well as residential customers.

"This method is just temporary," Hooper emphasized. "We normally start to see temperatures cool off in September. Hopefully, we'll see a bit more rain. I saw that there was some rain in the forecast for this week, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for that."

When asked about the water that Xcel Energy uses, Hooper replied that it is a fluid water, comprised of wastewater treatment plants and that they have to use water to run the plants. He also mentioned Tyson, who is a very big user of water but can't really do much to limit it.

Hooper added that the last water restrictions the city had were in 2022, but it was a different situation and the reservoir was doing pretty well. Although some deficiencies in the city system wouldn't allow them to put as much water into the system at that time, that they have made repairs to remedy that issue.

Stage Two of the Drought Contingency Plan would be like Stage One but would be mandatory — and include fines. "But we don't want to get to the point where we have to start telling people what they have to do," Hooper said.

He also added that they had reached out to Amarillo and Canyon school districts to work with them in limiting watering, and that some commercial customers had reached out to see how they could help.

To get out of the Stage One situation, Hooper said the city of Amarillo would need to reach 60% recovery in the reservoir and maintain that for about five days.

Nell Williams is a staff writer covering trends and other news for the Amarillo Globe-News. Have a story idea? Email her at [email protected] .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: City of Amarillo urges residents to conserve water to help reservoir