Water Wise Denton

Imagine your water footprint as a measure of all the water you indirectly use through the products and services you consume. It goes beyond just the water you use directly from your tap for drinking, showering, or cooking.

For instance, think about the water used to grow the food you eat, manufacture the clothes you wear, and produce the goods you buy. This includes the water used in agriculture, manufacturing processes, and even in the production of electricity you use. All these activities contribute to your overall water footprint.

Understanding your water footprint helps you see how your daily choices impact water resources globally. It encourages you to consider water conservation not only in your direct consumption but also in the broader context of the products you choose and support.

Are you curious? Use this handy tool to find your water footprint - you may be surprised at what you find: https://watercalculator.org/

Thank you for your patience with us these last 4 days as we were experiencing technical difficulties that prohibited us from updating the website. All technical issues appear to have been resolved, we are committed to continuing to provide transparency with our daily water usages.

Join us at the Emily Fowler Library on Thursday, August 29th from 6 pm - 7pm for a free water conservation class. Our Sustainability Department will be sharing practical tips for all residents who are interested in saving water and lowering their bill. This class is geared towards everyone! Because turf grass watering is the largest discretionary use of water, we often share tips on outdoor conservation, leaving our residents in multi-family housing wondering what they can do to save. This class will cover both indoor and outdoor savings as well as open your eyes to areas of hidden water loss! Hope to see you there!

The Emily Fowler Library is located at:

502 Oakland St

For more information, call our sustainability department at 940-349-8088

Yesterday we received some much needed rain, and based on our customer demand numbers (listed above and updated daily) it's clear that our residents are abiding by the irrigation schedule and that our commercial and multifamily customers took note of the rain. Together we can achieve water security - THANK YOU DENTON!

We are all so grateful for the cool weather day last week. While our thoughts are with Houston and other areas impacted by hurricane Beryl, we are grateful for the rain we are receiving here in Denton.

It's a great time to save money and turn off your sprinkler system!

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If you follow our city's daily water usage, you may have noticed the strange dip in our daily usage chart. You ALSO may have noticed that we beat the all time high water usage for the year, by 1.9 million gallons!

First, why the dip?

Our water system can produce up to 50 million gallons a day! But similarly to topping out the speed of your car, it's not a good idea to make a habit out of pushing to the limits. In the summer, we stress the system with extra water demand, which can mostly be attributed to extra irrigation usage, for the purpose of keeping grass green that naturally wants to go dormant during the heat. Now imagine you have a flat tire, you have to drive below the speed limit, and your car may only top out at 35 mph.

Similarly to the car, under extra summer stress for irrigation, parts become vulnerable, and yesterday one of those parts went out, and took our ability to produce from 50 million gallons per day (MGD) down to 45 MGD. The 3 lines across the top of the chart correspond to our TCEQ regulated thresholds for drought triggers. At 85%, 90%, and 95% of the system usage, we enter into different stages of drought. Normally that means 42.5 MGD, 45 MGD and 47.5 MGD. When we have a reduced treatment capacity, the 3 different percentiles become lower, in this case we could produce 45 MDG, so our triggers became 38.25 MGD, 40.5 MGD and 42.75 MGD.

It just so happened that while we were in reduced capacity, we say our highest demand yet. Luckily we were still 2 million gallons shy of Stage 1 Drought Triggers.

The last day of June saw the highest usage of the year so far, at 34 MILLION GALLONS!

While that is a huge number, it is also to be expected, considering we have had no rain in over 3 weeks, and temperatures are creeping up. Also, friday is a non-irrigation day, and we did see a dip in water usages on that day compared to weekend usages, THANK YOU!! The trends we see, tell us that our community is working together to be mindful of water usage - we appreciate you all!

We also saw significantly less water usage for the month compared to 2023, we reduced usage by 45 million gallons then we did in June 2023! Thank you Denton Community - you all are the best!

Happy Friday!

Thank you for adhering to our mandatory watering schedule! There is no watering at all on Fridays - but chances are you may see a neighbor or two watering anyways. If that happens... what do you do?

You can ALWAYS reach out to us, and we can send additional materials to the location. Odds are they somehow missed the irrigation schedule. We recommend, if you feel safe doing so, to reach out to your neighbor and politely let them know. Many people are turning on their systems and may not know there is a legacy setting going off on the wrong day. Or perhaps your neighbor is busy and meant to set the system to go off on a certain day and got distracted with life's responsibilities. With the schedule being new this year, there is a chance they somehow missed the information. NO matter the reason, when handled with kindness, a heads up between neighbors builds stronger communities. Together we can make a difference!