How Much Water?

The heat is on, Finally!…or maybe you’re thinking more like me, and bring back the rain!  Well, in the last few weeks with no rain and still none in the forecasts, our water in glasses increasingwater usage has gone up.  It’s increased.  I know mine has at my house, I’ve had to water the yard some; and in the City as a whole, usage has doubled what we used during the first part of the year.

Have you wondered “Just HOW MUCH water does the City use?”  And I don’t mean the City offices, I mean all of us that live and work here…all our homes, apartments, businesses…well, it really adds up to millions of gallons of water used everyday.  How many millions exactly depends on lots of things, but the most important is the temperature. (naturally!)

We have this information on the City’s website.  It’s totally accessible, after you choose like 5 different links before getting to that page.  Here’s a handy link to get you right to the page that displays the water usage information.  The City provides daily water use information in a graph, as well as lake levels of the lakes we get our water from (that would be Lakes Georgetown and Stillhouse Hollow).  It’s on the Water page of the Utilities and Environmental Services Department page, way down at the bottom.

Also, this may be more than you want to know, but for the water (and graph) nerds out there, here’s how much water has been used monthly for the last year in Round Rock.  (Since I’m both a water and graph nerd, I feel secure in being able to say that and not offend anyone!)

You can see that water use is low in the winter, and that is how is should be.  It’s what we expect to see.  That’s because fewer people are watering their landscapes (ideally everyone’s sprinklers are turned off, but that isn’t really the case).  The City generally uses between 13 – 15 million gallons of water per day in the winter months.  Summer usage is when we really need to pay attention to how high the use goes to ensure we have the water, have the capability of producing clean water, and distributing the water to everyone that needs it.  Currently, our City usage has been 28 – 34 million gallons of water per day this last month.  That’s a lot of water going onto our lawns!

Enjoy the water data!  And keep being water smart.