North Austin middle school watering schedule raises concerns amid restrictions

A North Austin resident is voicing his concerns about a nearby middle school's watering schedule amid the city's stage one drought response restrictions.

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin is currently in stage one drought response and a resident is concerned about a local middle school’s watering schedule. The city said it’s allowed, but not recommended.

Austin is encouraging residents to water their lawns once a week with sprinklers and a second day, if need be, with hoses. Residents are on a water schedule and the times are early morning and evening. This is an effort to conserve water.

"That wasn’t being applied to everyone equally and I thought was a little unusual," North Austin resident William Cray said.

At around 2 p.m. on Monday, Cray said he saw the Lamar Middle School football field being watered.

"It was 2:15 p.m. when I went by the first time, and it was 3 p.m. when I went by the second time, 105 degrees, there’s no shade on a football field, and I thought, 90% of the water is being evaporated before it does any good," Cray said.

Cray said he called 311 to express his concerns and received a response quickly.

"I got a reply six minutes later from someone who handles issues and said it’s an athletic field, therefore is under no restrictions," Cray said.

A representative for Austin Water told FOX 7 that city code allows for athletic fields to be irrigated when it’s necessary to protect the health and safety of the players, staff, or officials present for the athletic event. They said at schools, watering is usually necessary for safety reasons such as dust abatement.

"I’m not wanting to restrict watering of a football field or a soccer field or whatever field they’re playing on, but I thought maybe four o’clock in the morning when it’s 80, 75 degrees to 80 degrees and no sunshine would be more effective use of the water," Cray said.

Experts agree with Cray.

"You’re going to see a lot of loss of that water going down too, just due to the evaporation during the hottest hours of the day," Leaf Landscape Supply account manager Christopher Walsh said.

Leaf Landscape Supply account manager Brittany Coffee said not watering every day can help.

"Prolonging the watering for your grass will help the roots reach lower, and it’ll be able to retain more water to keep your grass alive longer," Coffee said.

She suggests hand watering rather than using a sprinkler system.

"If you run it on a sprinkler system, you are more than likely going to end up losing more water than your plants are going to be able to retain, so hand watering your big trees and stuff like that will help them actually get the water that they need," Coffee said.

A representative for Austin Water said the automatic watering schedule for schools is on Mondays from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. and mid-afternoon watering is not recommended.