The St. Johns River Water Management District is urging residents and businesses in northeast and Central Florida to keep conserving water, as the Phase III Extreme Water Shortage declared earlier this month continues.
RELATED: Extreme water shortages cover all of Lake, Marion, Polk, Sumter counties
All of Flagler, Lake, Marion, Polk and Sumter counties are in an extreme water shortage, as declared by St. Johns and the Southwest Water Management District.
Areas of extreme water shortage also include:
- In the St. Johns district: Clay, Duval, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties, plus parts of Alachua County.
- In the Southwest Florida district: All of Citrus, DeSoto, Hardee, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Sarasota counties; portions of Charlotte and Highlands counties; and Gasparilla Island in Charlotte County.
“The drought conditions impacting a majority of our region have not improved, and conservation efforts remain critically important,” said the St. Johns district director of water supply and assessment, Clay Coarsey, in a prepared statement. “Everyone can help reduce strain on our water resources by following restrictions and eliminating unnecessary water use.”
Outdoor irrigation is one of the greatest demands on drinking water supplies, making conservation efforts especially critical during extended dry periods.
The district's mandatory watering restrictions limit residential lawn watering to just one day a week and only before 8 a.m and after 6 p.m. The district says that, if you haven't done so already, you should immediately reset your irrigation timer accordingly.
The district is also asking golf courses to limit the irrigation of fairways to one day a week and limit the irrigation of greens and teeboxes to three days a week.
Many irrigation systems for golf courses and certain public spaces use reclaimed water: treated, recycled wastewater and stormwater used to reduce demand on potable groundwater supplies. During the water shortage, irrigation systems using reclaimed water may still occasionally operate in public places like parks, medians and common areas, according to the district.
“While conservation remains important across all water sources, some reclaimed water systems must continue operating to maintain system function or manage storage capacity,” according to a statement from the district.
RELATED: Drinking recycled water? In Central Florida, the day will come
Car washes aren’t a big concern, Coarsey said in a recent interview with Central Florida Public Media’s Engage program. “The good thing about most commercial car washes is that they've become very efficient in recycling water and do not use a substantial amount of water, so they're not a primary target of the water shortage at this point in time,”
RELATED: Tighter Water Restrictions Amid Ongoing Drought impact Central Floridians
For the last three months, every part of Florida has been experiencing some level of drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a national map of drought conditions updated weekly by meteorologists and climatologists.
Central Florida would need to get between about 25 and 27 inches of rain, at minimum, over the next three months in order to remedy extreme drought conditions currently affecting the region. But even with that amount of rainfall, some level of drought would still likely persist.
“This isn't something that's going to be an overnight fix,” Coarsey said. “It's going to take months of above normal rainfall levels to start to dig our way out of the drought condition we're currently in.”
