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Borderland Thursday,
February 27, 2003
David Crowder
El Paso Times
El Pasoans may have to decide between lush,
green lawns and having a fire department that can fight fires this summer.
That's the kind of choice the city faces
because the long drought in Colorado has dried up the Rio Grande and left
Elephant Butte Reservoir -- the source of more than 60 percent of the city's
water in spring and summer -- at 13 percent of its capacity, El Paso Water
Utilities General Manager Ed Archuleta said Wednesday.
At his urging Wednesday, the city's Public
Service Board voted to recommend that the City Council impose Stage 2
water-use restrictions as of April 1. The council is likely to approve the
restrictions Tuesday.
But Archuleta said the e-mail and telephone
calls he is getting suggest that El Pasoans aren't sold on the reality of
the drought and the need for water conservation.
"We have not been able to convince some
people of the seriousness of this situation," he said. "But there were brown
lawns in Austin last summer, and we need to convince them that we may need
to let lawns here go a little bit brown this summer."
Ray Ponteri, who runs an El Paso credit
union, said he has heard those doubts expressed and thinks it's ridiculous
to suspect the city is lying.
"I know the river-water allocation has been
reduced to 10 percent of what we normally get," he said. "There is nothing
for these people to gain in fabricating a drought."
Normally, outdoor lawn watering is limited
to every other day starting April 1, but the Stage 2 restrictions cut such
watering to two hours, once a week. Those rules don't apply to underground
drip irrigation systems.
Allowing twice-a-week watering or
widespread disregard for the new restrictions "will put the community at
risk with low or no water pressure and increase the real probability of lack
of fire protection for the city," according to the utility's presentation
Wednesday.
The choice between green grass and fire
protection seems extreme, Ponteri said, "but to me the answer is obvious."
"The lawn is ... a lot less important than
the things we truly need, like fire protection and water to consume and wash
with."
David Crowder may be reached at
dcrowder@elpasotimes.com |
