BELTON, Texas — A continued drought in Central Texas has left Lake Belton 16 feet lower.
Ricky Garrett is with the Bell County Water Improvement District 1.
"It is an extremely harsh drought," Garrett told 25 News. "A lot of people forget that we are completely dependent on rainfall. When we don't have it, that is our water supply."
Garrett said in his nine years of work in the area he's never seen drought conditions this bad.
The area entered a Stage 2 drought on Tuesday with the lake now being down almost 40 percent. Residents in Belton and surrounding cities are asked to limit their usage by 10 percent to help conserve.
"Just cut out any nonessential use," Paul Romer with the City of Belton said. "That would mean if you spray off your sidewalk, don't do that anymore. If you have an ornamental fountain, unplug that until the drought is over. Those are the nonessential uses we are talking about."
The City of Belton has cut their own water usage and reached out to some of the biggest users directly to come up with ways they can reduce as well.
"If residents and the commercial entities, governmental entities and the other entities and we all do our part, we can get that 10 percent and hopefully stretch this out a bit," Romer said.
If water is not conserved and it becomes a Stage 3 drought, area residents will be required to reduce use by 40 percent.
"I think the thing that's important to remember is we don't know how long the drought will last so let's do some stuff on the front end to make sure we don't get to Stage 3 restrictions," Romer said.
"Every percent we save can preserve the water supply a little bit longer," Garrett added. "I'm thinking we'll be out of the critical stage in six to eight weeks, but we may not be. Every day counts."
