Lawns in Northeast Florida have been placed under mandatory watering restrictions as our groundwater levels have lowered.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Usually, during daylight saving time, you are allowed to water our lawns twice a week.
However, due to little rain and decreasing water levels, we are currently only permitted to water once a week, as the St. Johns River Water Management District has issued a modified Phase II Severe Water Shortage.
“The groundwater level conditions in most of Duval and Saint Johns County are below the 10th percentile, which means that 90% of the time, they would be higher than they’re currently at,” said Clay Coarsey, the director of the Division of Water Supply Planning and Assessment at the St. Johns River Water Management District.
This story continues below.
Irrigation restrictions in place due to decreasing water levels
Coarsey says that because of these low water levels, mandatory watering restrictions have been put in place on irrigation.
Homes are permitted to water once a week on a specific day of the week:
Saturday – odd-numbered addresses or no addressesSunday – even numbered addressesTuesday- nonresidential properties
It is important to water before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m., only water when truly needed. Irrigation is limited to no more than three-quarters of an inch of water per zone and no more than one hour per zone on your scheduled day.
These rules apply to most everyone, including private wells and pumps, ground or surface water and water from public and private utilities.
“If we’re not doing our best to conserve water, you can have saline water upconing occur where the more dense saline water that is beneath the freshwater and aquifer system starts to work its way up into some of the water wells,” said Coarsey.
He says it could get worse, but if we all do our part, it could also get better.
“If you think about a typical home, going from 1 day a week to 2 days a week, that’s probably saving for that home about 1000 gallons of water a week,” said Coarsey. “So when you start adding that up by multiple homes doing that, it becomes quite a substantial water saving that we can do to help us get through these periods of below normal rainfall.”