The City Council is preparing to vote on a water emergency draft plan that could require some residents to significantly reduce their water usage.
During a recent water workshop, city officials stated that CCW has over 91,000 water customers. Under the proposed plan, 70 percent of those customers are already below the usage threshold and will not need to cut back from their current consumption. However, the remaining 30 percent are using more and would be required to reduce their usage to around 5,000 gallons.
Proposed water emergency plan could limit large families’ usage.
I conducted a mini survey in the newsroom to see how this proposed limit might impact different households. The results showed the restrictions will primarily affect larger families with five or more people.
One person surveyed who lives alone with a cat uses 2,000 gallons monthly, while another single-person household also reported using 2,000 gallons. A household of five reported using exactly 5,000 gallons. Another family of five — including two adults, an aunt, and two children under 15 — reported using 12,000 gallons. That resident wondered if the high usage was due to the children taking long showers…