Cape Coral urges people to conserve irrigation water

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CAPE CORAL, Fla. – If you think keeping your lawn green is already a battle, the City of Cape Coral could make it more difficult.
People in the Cape may see more brown lawns, if they don’t start following the city’s watering schedule.

Cape Coral says irrigation water is being overused. The city utility director says they could impose a mandatory watering just once a week.

Thirteen million gallons of irrigation water are used on any given Tuesday. It’s a day people aren’t supposed to run their sprinklers. To avoid overuse, Leora Andersen keeps her sprinkles scheduled.

“It’s on a schedule on the sprinkler system and we adhere to that schedule,” said Andersen, “we’ve never lived in a community where we’re on a set schedule, but it’s worked well for us.”

The water level in the canal makes it noticeable that we are at the end of dry season.
There is about a one foot difference of where the water level usually is to where it is now.

“We’re in okay shape,” said Jeff Pearson, Cape Coral Utility Director, “we want to be cautiously optimistic and make sure we have plenty of water to make it into the next rainy season.”

Right now people in Cape Coral can water their lawns two days a week depending on their address. The city is asking people to voluntarily cut watering to one day a week.

“Two days, for four hours each day, which is total of eight hours a week, should be ample amount of water to properly irrigate your lawn,” said Pearson.

If two days a week isn’t enough to keep your lawn green, you are allowed to hand water it at any time.

The city has a number of projects underway to help increase the supply of irrigation water. In the meantime, they ask that the people of Cape Coral stick to their allotted two days a week.

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