Water Scofflaws Force CLWSC to Reissue Restrictions

Canyon Lake Water Service Company (CLWSC) has moved back into an emergency stage of water restrictions for the north side of Canyon Lake as well as for Blanco, Spring Branch and Bulverde as customers continue to ignore year-round watering schedules and requests to limit usage during a recent zebra-mussel incursion and main transmission line ruptures.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Larry Jackson, manager, Customer Service, said this “excessive and relentless” consumption has resulted in critically low storage levels and has put water availability at risk for the health and safety of customers.

“Until further notice, all water usage must be limited to indoor usage only and all irrigation must be suspended,” he said. “Incidentally, this usage pattern is also being observed in remaining parts of our service area (Vintage Oaks, Startzville, Smithson Valley, etc.) and emergency water restrictions may include these areas soon.”

On June 1, CLWSC implemented a new year-round watering schedule to manage production with customer demand, aligning the utility with other regional utilities facing similar concerns for water supply, production, distribution and consumption.

“When the water production at our Canyon Lake Shores Surface Water Treatment Plant (SWTP) was severely reduced due to a zebra-mussel incursion in July, we asked our impacted customers to limit their water usage to indoor use while we worked to resolve the problem.

“However, during the year-round water schedule time period as well as the indoor-use-only water-restriction tilme period, we continued to observe a much higher than normal water consumption, specifically during all night time hours. This indicated a significant number of customers were watering grass and irrigating landscaping without regard to the ear-round watering schedule or our request to limit usage during the emergency.”