| Updated: 7/30/2012 5:28 pm |
Published: 7/30/2012 5:13 pm
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The City of Tulsa is looking at possible voluntary water rationing.
Neighbors used more than 197 million gallons of water on Sunday, and if the city surpasses that on Monday, the Mayor is ready to implement voluntary restrictions.
Neighbors in Rogers County are already feeling the effects of mandatory water rationing as they now have to fight the urge to pick up their hose.
Coming up with creative ways to keep his hound dogs cool this summer is quite a task for Rogers County resident, Tommy Sellers.
"They like to get their feet cool and their belly cool and if that part of them is cool, well then they are in good shape,” says Sellers.
Sellers has lived in Claremore for 15 years now, but the recent drought is really taking a toll especially on his lawn.
"With this heat and high humidity, we're ending up with all this dead grass and we're not getting any rain,” he says.
Because Rogers County is under a mandatory water ration, he can only water his yard every other day.
"Getting out and watering the lawn isn't going to help too much anyway, because it evaporates just as fast as you put it on,” says Sellers.
“Our main problem is trying to pump the water up Keetonville Hill and also over at Woodcrest getting the water up across the river and up the hill,” says Rogers County Rural Water District manager, Rick Stull.
With the increased water usage, comes very low suction pressure.
“The same thing is that people are using it, then low suction and we can't get it to the highest elevation,” says Stull.
The good news is that most of the people living in Rogers County are complying with the water ration.
"It's kind of interesting that we're going on this water rationing living right next to the lake, but at the same time it happens,” says Sellers.
If water use in Tulsa tops 204 million gallons a day for two straight days, then the voluntary restrictions would become mandatory.
