WYLIE, Texas — Water officials with the North Texas Municipal Water District are urging their customers to stop all non-essential water use immediately.
NTMWD serves about 1.8 million people across 10 counties in the region. It is facing never-before-seen increases in demand at the same time it is dealing with equipment issues related to the cold weather, officials said in a news release Wednesday.
It serves most of Kaufman, Rockwall and Collin counties, as well as parts of Denton, Dallas, Hunt counties and others. Go here to see the locations.
Demand is outpacing the water district's ability to refill the distribution tanks across the 2,200 square miles it serves.
Texans need to conserve the water supply to ensure essential services like fire departments, medical facilities and basic human health and sanitation needs are met, officials said.
Officials from the water district are calling on Texans to take several steps to prevent a further stage of this crisis:
Do's
- Isolate any water leaks and repair them immediately
- Delay showers and only take sponge baths when necessary
- If possible, do not drip your faucets. If you need to drip or stream faucets to prevent pipe problems, collect the water for other uses like filling your toilets or washing dishes
- Turn off water to brush teeth, shave or soap up in a shower
- Protect hose bibs and faucets from freezing weather
- Peel and clean vegetables in a large bowl instead of under running water
Don't's
- Do not hoard water
- Do not wash clothes or dishes more than absolutely necessary. Don't use a washing machine when you do need to wash them.
- Do not use the garbage disposal. Instead, place food scraps in a garbage can or compost bin
“The District is confident, with public assistance, that essential water demands can be met by eliminating other water uses,” said Billy George, NTMWD Assistant Deputy of Water. “We ask the cities and water utilities served by NTMWD... take any measures necessary to assist in reducing non-essential water use."
The water district's personnel are working to get more treatment capacities online, officials said, but they need to thaw them out, which takes time. They believe they will have more capacity online Wednesday evening or by Thursday morning.
"It is critical at this time and until additional supplies are available to lower water demands to only essential water uses," the release said.
Arlington is making the same request for customers to cut back on water usage to essential needs only as well as the Texas energy crisis compounds into what appears to be an ever-increasing problem for the state. The Houston area is experiencing a major loss of water pressure, with most homes completely without access.
Natural gas utilities are also asking customers to limit their usage of that resource to only essential needs as well.
That's in addition to the need to curtail power usage.
Those requests are, of course, for those residents who have not been cut off from the utilities already.
Widespread power outages across the state have placed these utilities under greater demand and stress, officials say, leading to outages of their own as well as runs on these other supplies.
Demand for water and natural gas is at an all-time high, officials say.
Bruce Bullock, director of SMU's Maguire Energy Institute, said while much of the natural gas available has gone towards Texans' homes, the state's power plants need this fuel as well but aren't getting what they need.
Natural gas providers haven't been able to manufacture, ship or transport their product either, according to Gov. Greg Abbott. He said people from these companies are telling his team, "It's just frozen right now. It's frozen in the pipeline. It's frozen at the rig. It's frozen at the transmission line."
Atmos Energy sent out a message Tuesday asking all of its customers and businesses to conserve as much energy as possible.
The natural-gas-only company is one of the nation's largest distributors. The Dallas-based company serves about 3 million customers in more than 1,400 communities in nine states.
