If you take a look at the U.S. Drought Monitor’s map, you can see that it’s color-coded, with D5 – Exceptional Drought – being the darkest. Texas is stained blood-red. For the past  nine months, our state has the worst drought in the nation.

On Sept. 6th, the City of Austin sounded the alarm, putting the city under whatsome see as a lock-down. Stage Two water restrictions are in effect, meaning that homeowners can only water their lawns once a week: odd-numbered homes on Saturdays, even-numbered on Sundays. To avoid evaporation, lawns must also be watered before 10 a.m.

Who’s watching? Well, the city is mostly relying on neighbors reporting each other.

No one is charged anything for the first offense, but two-timers owe the city up to $500. It’s not just lawns: fountains and charity car washes are banned until Austin gets wetter, and water is no longer served at restaurants unless requested.

St. Edward’s University Physical Plant says it would water everything in one night if it could, but its pipes can’t water the whole campus in that amount of time. The city has given the university a waiver to let it take two nights to water. For now, all the campus fountains are empty. So why the restrictions? Why are people using less water when everything is dryer? It’s easy to point to the hardships of drought and say “now’s the time to use more!” But that has its price. Just look at what it did to the economy.

A WETNESS RECESSION

It’s interesting that we want the government to “tighten its belt” right now: slashing programs, cutting spending, and leaving its people alone. But we don’t want to “tighten the hose” ourselves. Think about water conservation as the debt crisis. We’ve spent a lot—like using water—and have lost it. Now on top of that, there’s a harsh economic climate—a drought.

Some could propose pulling more water from the aquifer and dousing the land,  because then we wouldn’t need to use less. But here’s the difference: drought makes everything more costly. All moisture will start to evaporate as soon as it leaves the hose. For every drop we use, more of it is wasted. We’d have to use up a lot more water now to keep our grasses green. At St. Edward’s, that’s just what we’re doing.

AUSTIN’S AQUIFERS

Most importantly, that water won’t be there forever.

The Edward’s Aquifer supplies 1.5 million Texans with drinking water. For many of us, it’s in our sinks and our bathrooms as well. Rainwater and runoff help to re-fill it each year, but rainfall alone is too variable. Too many more years of record droughts could drain it severely.

How much is “severely?” The aquifers have enough water to last for centuries, but the top 5 to 10 percent provides Texas’ springs. In just a few decades, Barton Springs could go dry.

In just the last few years, the springs and rivers have gotten dirtier. It’s been so empty that sinkholes have opened up, spots where water flows unfiltered into the aquifer.

When these holes open up near construction or industrial chemicals, or even parking lots, those contaminants flow right into our drinking water.

All of this comes from watering twice a week. The take-home message is this: telling people to use less water isn’t an attack on individual rights; it’s to protect what we all own.