Inside City Hall: Watching water consumption this summer

Summer is here! The Public Works Department has been busy this year already. The construction for the Core Area utility replacement started in late March and has been moving along on or ahead of schedule. Mother Nature has been cooperating a little better this year. 

While the dry weather is good for the construction season, it is not as good for the Water Treatment Plant. At last report from the National Weather Service, the rainfall for the year is nearly 3 inches below normal. June is normally a wetter month with July being a hotter and drier month. We have had several days in the mid to upper 90’s in the month of July.

As the temperatures soar, so does the water consumption at the Water Treatment Plant. We have had 11 days of over 1.0 million gallons of water used per day since the last week of May. Ten of those days have been consecutive since May 31. Of those 10 days, there have been eight days that reached over 1.2 million gallons. This is a quick and drastic jump for this early in the season.

The City of Brandon implemented a watering restriction policy back in 2017. In May 2018, it was tweaked to have three stages – green, yellow and red. The trigger point to move from a green condition (which we are in as of this writing), is three consecutive days of 1.6 million gallons or a single day of 2.0 million gallons. The numbers are nearing that trigger point quickly. The trigger point to go from yellow condition to red condition is seven consecutive days of 1.6 million gallons or a single day of 2.0 million gallons.

The Water Conservation Committee was formed to come up with ideas on how to educate the public on conserving water through different various means such as low-flow toilets, low-flow shower heads, rain sensors for irrigation systems, and rain barrels for catching rain water to use on gardens or such. The committee helped come up with the trigger points for the three stages of restrictions. They have done a great job over the last couple of years.

If you need information on watering stages, the City has it listed on their website and is updated as the stages change. Let’s all do our part to try and help conserve our water resource.