Sioux Falls Implements New Water Restrictions

Air Date: 08/29/2012

Newsroom

By Kealey Bultena

The City of Sioux Falls is implementing stricter water restrictions, starting now. People who water their lawns were on an odd-even schedule before. The latest restrictions allow just one day a week for watering.

Sioux Falls officials say the city has to preserve water for its essential uses inside the home. Trent Lubbers is the Utilities Operations Administrator for Sioux Falls. He says, with a limited supply, lawn-watering isn’t vital.
 
"We’ve had a historic dry period over the last twelve months. We’ve had historically low flow, and we’re about five inches below just for the calendar year this year, so we’re not seeing a lot of water in our watershed north of Sioux Falls," Lubbers says. "We’re not seeing it in Sioux Falls, and then we’ve had some really hot and windy days in July and now again this week in August."

Water officials say they pulled more water from the Big Sioux River earlier in the year. But Water Superintendent Greg Anderson says the Big Sioux’s flow is slowing, so officials can’t use as much from the river. That limits water resources to groundwater.

"When we see dry spells, we focus our attention on the river, because we know, once it runs by, it’s gone forever," Anderson says. "We utilize that heavily to reduce the withdrawal rate from the groundwater aquifers so that we could save it in case we got drier."

Anderson notes the city is getting more water from the Lewis and Clark water pipeline than it anticipated. He says that new water source became available at the perfect time. If there’s no significant moisture in the next few weeks, Anderson says the city enters an additional phase of water restrictions.

With the one-day-a-week schedule, people in Sioux Falls also must continue to avoid watering between noon and 5 p.m. Stage 2 limits lawn watering to one day per week based on the last number of the property address. The schedule for Sioux Falls is listed below.

Monday – 0
Tuesday – 1
Wednesday – 2 and 3
Thursday – 4
Friday – 5
Saturday – 6 and 7
Sunday – 8 and 9

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