Taylor residents forced to cut back on water usage after pipes go offline

TAYLOR, Texas - Residents in Taylor were forced to cut back on water usage after the city's water source, the Brazos River Authority, said an electrical power glitch caused several water pipes to go offline.

"I was kind of concerned about it. I knew that there was something going on because my water pressure went down," says Taylor resident David Jackson.

David Jackson is one of many residents impacted by what the Brazos River Authority is calling a technical failure at the East Williamson County Regional Water System located on Lake Granger.

"They apparently had a power surge at their facility. They have three main pumps that serve their water production facility there as well as a large reserve tank for when they can't produce as much as we are consuming, so what happened was after the power surge some of their pumps went down temporarily," says City of Taylor Director of Communications Daniel Seguin.

According to the Brazos River Authority, one pump has been restarted, but efforts to restart the remaining two have been unsuccessful, resulting in residents being placed on stage three water restrictions.

"The city of Taylor uses around 2 to 2 and a half million gallons per day. Overall, on the Brazos River Authority system, we were using around 9 million per day," says Seguin.

According to the city, specific addresses will alternate watering their lawns on certain days of the week, limited to two days a week, washing cars and refilling pools is not allowed.

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"Some of these newer neighborhoods are where people have sprinkler systems and different things. I am pretty sure it is impacting them a lot because they are not able to run their sprinklers knowing their yards are probably drying out, you know, getting brown," says Jackson.

"We are asking for voluntary compliance as well, because we aren't in a major emergency at this point, but if we were to be in a stage three during major emergency, severe drought, that sort of thing, there could potentially be penalties," says Seguin.

While repairs are being done, the BRA says it is monitoring the water supply closely.

"I mean it is an inconvenience, but it is not something that I am really concerned about because I don't think it is going to take them a long time to replace the pumps and get everything back to normal," says Jackson.

The earliest the water restrictions are expected to be lifted is Friday, July 19.