Georgetown residents asked to conserve water as city enters Stage 2 restrictions

GEORGETOWN, Texas - Nothing beats the Texas heat like water, but the City of Georgetown has asked its residents to cut back on the summer staple.

"It's more of a capacity concern at this point," said Chelsea Solomon, the water utilities director for Georgetown.

Georgetown is in a stage 2 water conservation effort.

"When we hit 85 percent for three consecutive days, and that takes us down to one day a week watering schedule," said Solomon.

The city asked customers to lend a hand and follow a one-day-a-week watering schedule.

"When people are not watering according to the schedule, then that could force us to go into stage 3, which we don't want to do," said Solomon.

The city said a majority of its water usage on Monday was thanks to people not watering on their given day. 

Heading into stage three would eliminate nearly all outdoor irrigation.

"Everyone needs to do something about conserving water," said John Kabanek, a Georgetown resident.

Kabanek decided to take his water conservation a step further with all native plants.

"All the plants that I have are set up be really for nature," said Kabanek. "Rocks, certain types of plants, cactuses, things like that that were drought tolerant."

The city said it supports those efforts with rebates.

"Anywhere from native landscaping, rain barrels, even irrigation checkups," said Tiffany Diaz, a regulatory conservation manager in Georgetown.

The latest water restrictions bring up another concern for some residents.

"I like to see progress," said Kabanek. "I'm all for adding new restaurants and I see nothing wrong with new apartment buildings or housing. What type of landscaping are they putting in? Because if they're going to use a lot of water, that's going to hurt other people."

The city said it has an integrated water resource plan and several new treatment plants it hopes will take a load off its customers.

"We have the three construction projects that are ongoing and will double our system capacity," said Solomon. "The current concerns that we're having are going to be short-lived."

Georgetown expects the first two plants to be done in the next few months and the final plant in 2025.