thinking about tx ,need help deciding..

[momof2dfw]

Any idiot that has been watering their yard for the last month needs to have their water cut off. Out of 31 days we had 21 days of rain in the DFW region. If we had no rain at all and you could only water twice a week that would only be 8 days of water. I can only imagine the number of mushrooms and the mold in those yards.

I have a car wash by me that on Wednesdays it is only $12 for a full service wash. Typically every other week I take two cars to go get cleaned up and it lasts for awhile. I can't wash them all at home for that and in that short amount of time. I'll do spot cleaning at home and stuff and spit shine the classics to take them out.

Don't count on all of those new water resources too fast. One of the proposed lakes is probably on the chopping block. Then that pipeline being built to pump water from Lake Tawakoni to the Trinity to filter water and pump it into Lavon may not be all that grand considering that Tawakoni is still well below average as they have not gotten the rain to the east that most of the Dallas area did. Also Lake Ray Hubbard (owned by the City of Dallas) gets first dibs on water from Tawakoni to keep LRH up to a constant level to help w/ the power plant. Also the North Texas Municipal Water District will and CAN issue higher rates to member and non-member cities if their water usage increased to limits beyond what is allowed.

We need to keep some kind of constant water restrictions and it is pretty sad that the during this drought that not once did the city of Dallas issue water restrictions.

[HeadingtoTexas]

Originally Posted by aceplace

There are occasional minor water restrictions during dry spells, but in general. the DFW area has, and uses, copious amounts of water, and is steadily expanding the supply.

I used to live in the SF Bay Area. One year, a drought was so bad in Marin County that people were urged to not flush their toilets unless it was absolutely necessarily.

I don't know about you, but for me, it is absolutely necessary to flush. Every single time!

[socketz]

"Residents in both cities will be allowed to wash their cars with hoses that have a handheld spray nozzle"

Sweet.

Mom - I try the car wash approach as well, but for me, they just never do as good of a job as I can. And I enjoy washing the car.

The thing that kills me about car washes is that they are terrified to touch the wheels. A clean car with dirty wheels just looks wrong to me...

I'm OCD about this type of thing...

[aceplace]

Originally Posted by HeadingtoTexas

I don't know about you, but for me, it is absolutely necessary to flush. Every single time!

Marin County was in a particularly tough spot, waterwise.

Their existing water supply was a series of small ponds in the north county hills. When the ponds dried up, they found they had no easy way to get water from other counties. The county had been deliberately restricting their water infrastructure in order to justify not issuing building permits. They were very antagonistic to poulation growth, felt it would damage the county's rural atmosphere.

So there were no water pipelines big enough to get an emergency supply from outside the county. They finally located a canvas water pipe about a foot across and long enough. They actually had to close one lane of a highway bridge between the county and the city of Richmond to lay that pipe directly on the roadway surface. That one pipe, one foot thick, had to supply water for a county of 250,000 people.

Needless to say, the rationing was severe. Not quite as bad as, say, 3 swallows each from the canteen, but still pretty tough. Each house was allowed a token amount, maybe 30 gallons per day, at the usual rates. If you went beyond that, the rate escalated to 10 times as much. Then it went to 100 times as much. Some homeowner reported that a truck had driven onto his property in the middle of the night and stolen the water from his swimming pool!

[aceplace]

Actually, in the 1950's, I remember a pretty bad drought. Well, the drought wasn't THAT bad, but the city of Dallas did not have the lakes and the surpluses it does now.

On an emergency basis, the city arranged to channel water from the Red River on the Texas-Oklahoma line so we would have some water. It tasted, very, exceedingly, foul.

Well, in those days, there was no such thing as buying bottled water at a 7-11. You drank what came out of the tap. I remember my dad loading my mom and my sisters and I into the family car for a trip to South Dallas, actually to the site of what is now Old City Park. The site had originally been called Browder Springs, and the springs were now capped and tapped by a well. The well water was certainly delicious.

After that dire emergency, the city of Dallas made it a priority to ensure not only ample supplies of water, but an overwhelming surplus... thus, came into being the chain of lakes around the metro.