Voluntary Water Use Reductions Requested

The City of Greensboro is asking citizens to voluntarily reduce water consumption as provided in Chapter 29.5-6. While this request is for voluntary compliance, all citizens and businesses are encouraged to participate in order to help avoid mandatory restrictions should current dry weather patterns continue.

Rainfall recorded for Greensboro is nine inches less than normal for this date. Higher than normal rainfall in August left reservoirs nearly full, which is unusual for that time of the year.  However, abnormally low rainfall for September and October (less than three inches for both months) has reduced flows into the reservoirs.

Allan Williams, Director of Water Resources, states “Currently our reservoir levels are considerably better than at this time in 1998 when Greensboro experienced its most difficult water supply management problem since the 1950s. Current inventory of water is 5.8 billion gallons vs. 3.5 billion gallons at this time in 1998. Long-term weather forecasts do predict normal rainfall, however, forecasts for the next week or two do not show substantial likelihood of rain.  Given these conditions, Greensboro feels it is prudent to request these voluntary restrictions, as have several other water suppliers in the region (some of whom are on mandatory restrictions)."

Greensboro’s Emergency Restriction Plan provides for mandatory restrictions when the water supply drops to 150 days. Conditions currently provide an estimate of 180 to 190 days of supply. In mid-September the amount of water purchased from Reidsville was increased to over 4 million gallons per day to supplement the Greensboro lake supply. This week valves were opened to flow an additional 1 to 2 million gallons per day from Winston-Salem’s system.  These supplemental purchases, coupled with voluntary restrictions, will likely keep Greensboro’s supply in much better condition while we wait for the start of winter precipitation.        

Allan Williams, Director of Water Resources (373-2050) or Jim Moorefield, Water Supply Manager (373-5856) will be available for interviewing on Thursday afternoon.  Kristine Williams, Water Conservation Coordinator (335-5459) will also be available to offer details of water conservation methods citizens and businesses can use.