WOODWAY, Texas (KXXV) — Last quarter, the City of Woodway had a 64-million-gallon increase in water usage compared to the previous year.
The reason why?
“It was a lot warmer of a quarter than the year before. Longer into the end of the winter season, we saw more people were still out watering their yards,” Woodway director of community services Mitch Davison said.
However, only five percent of the city's annual water usage occurs between January and March.
It’s later in the year that concerns are raised.
“From, I want to say, July to October. We see about half the year's water usage in those three to four months,” Davison said.
Davison told 25 News that the city uses 2.5 to 4.5 million gallons of water daily.
But in the summer, that can increase to about 7 to 8 million gallons daily.
“In the next 50 years. The aquifer levels we're starting to see some depletion, and it will be more and more expensive to produce our own water, and so we plan for that in the long run,” Davison said.
“Got it. So, would that result in y'all buying more water from Waco,” 25 News’ Kadence MaKenna asked.
“Yes,” Davison said. “In hot, dry months, it's really hard to keep up with demand without supplementing from Waco. So that's typically how we operate.”
Last year, Davison told 25 News there were issues with half of the wells used by the city.
“We had a really rough summer with three different wells going down. And it hurt us financially,” Davison said.
As a result, the city raised water rates on Oct 1.
