Earlier this month, on June 3rd, Waverly Mayor Bill Gerdes declared a water warning for the city, urging residents to conserve water…now, the city of Waverly is in a water emergency.
Detailed in a Facebook post, Mayor Gerdes is now pleading for the community to conserve water. Since the beginning of the month, Waverly’s daily water usage was been more than 1,000,000 gallons a day.
The emergency goes into effect tomorrow, Wednesday June 28th. §51.37 of the Waverly Municipal Code states that upon the declaration of a water supply emergency, the Mayor is authorized to implement certain mandatory water conservation measures. The conservation measures aren’t too dissimilar from one opposed voluntarily on the City of Lincoln. They include but aren’t limited to:
- Sprinkling of water on lawns, shrubs, or trees (including golf courses), that users are mandatorily restricted to conserve water by rotating water use on and even, odd system. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday addresses ending in even numbers, are restricted to watering on these days only. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, addresses ending in Odd numbers, are restricted to watering on these days only.
Mayor Gerdes intends to ask the City Council to consider implementing an emergency-water rate at their Tuesday meeting, 6 p.m. tonight. Proposing an additional $5 per 1000-gallon usage fee after 10,000 gallons of usage per month.
Anyone found in violation of the water restrictions could receive a written notice of the violation. If not corrected, the City could choose to terminate water service to the customer.
Below his post in the comment section, Gerdes elaborated saying:
“When (we) Waverly use a 1,000,000 gallons of water per day, that means the water towers (both) have essentially emptied and been refilled. That means 1,000,000 gallons of water was pumped out of the aquifer through our wells. Without significant moisture and time the aquifer doesn’t get recharged, and our well levels drop. When our well levels drop and demand doesn’t slow – action needs to be taken whether I or anyone else likes it. We can’t run out of water.” Gerdes ended his comment saying, “If you knew me you would know that I understand the hardships it may bring but I was elected to do what’s best for Waverly and making the hard sometimes unpopular decisions is what I have to do.”
(Photo Courtesy: City of Waverly, Facebook)