Charlottesville issues drought warning

Charlottesville City Council approved drought warning stage restrictions for all City residents and businesses at a special meeting on Wednesday.

This follows the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority’s declaring of a drought warning on October 5, 2017.  Weeks of dry weather have resulted in lower than normal river and reservoir levels and area residents and businesses are being notified to restrict outdoor water usage and implement other water conservation measures.

This notification regarding water use restrictions is mandatory for all City water customers and users.  “We are trying to preserve our community water supply by asking households to conserve water and encourage people to be extremely frugal with their water usage” says City of Charlottesville Utilities Director Lauren Hildebrand.  To sustain acceptable levels in the water supply, we are asking all our customers to NOT conduct any outdoor watering.

The mandatory restrictions include:

• No washing any car, truck, trailer or any other type of mobile equipmentexcept at a commercial vehicle wash facility is allowed;
• No cleaning of any sidewalks, streets, driveways, parking lots, service station aprons, exterior of buildings;
• Only water established plantings with a non-leaking hose with an automatic (hand-held) shut-off nozzle to preserve plant life. This means no hoses, sprinklers, irrigation systems or any other method, except as noted, can be used to water outside shrubbery, trees, lawns, vegetable gardens or any other vegetation. The only exception is for commercial green houses, nursery stocks, athletic fields and courts, which may be watered only enough to preserve plant life and only between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m.;
• Newly seeded lawns and plantings are required to be installed by a licensed contractor with certain restrictions and need approval from the City to be installed;
• Swimming and wading pools requiring more than five gallons of water may not be replenished or refilled.  Contact your water supplier for details;
• Water will not be served in restaurants, except upon request;
• Fire hydrants will not be used for any other purpose than fire suppression, unless specific authorization is received from your water supplier;
• No operation of any water-cooled air conditioning that does not have water conserving equipment; and
• Commercial lodging establishments shall adopt a policy which limits the daily changing of washable linens and towels.

Tips on Water Conservation and updates on drought conditions are available on www.charlottesville.org/waterconservation or on Facebook and Twitter.  The entire City ordinance text of the conservation of water during emergencies is available at www.charlottesville.org/drought.