KANNAPOLIS — Kannapolis residents and businesses can resume using city water outside two days a week — with some limitations — after city leaders eased water-use restrictions Monday.
Using hand-held hoses with spring-loaded nozzles, residents, landscapers, nurseries and pressure-washing companies can water plants, wash cars and more on Wednesdays and Saturdays, two low-use water days.
But the city remains under a Level II water emergency, meaning that all other restrictions on water use still are in force, including fines of $100 for residents and $500 for businesses who violate them.
The loosened restrictions come thanks in part to successful conservation efforts, above-average rainfall in March and a little confusion after Concord and Landis recently relaxed mandatory conservation rules.
“People are getting confused; they see what Concord has done, and they think that applies to us as well,” City Manager David Hales said. “I think there is an argument to be made to be as consistent as we can with Concord.”
But he hastened to add that’s only if the Kannapolis water supply can handle it.
Wilmer Melton, the city’s water and wastewater resources director, says it can, right now.
Nearly 6 inches of rain fell in March, more than an inch above normal for the month. During the month, the reservoir gained 33 inches, starting the month at 70 inches below full and ending at 37 inches below full.
Although less than half an inch of rain has fallen in April, Melton said conservation and secondary sources have helped fill Kannapolis Lake to its highest level in a year.
The lake is 29 inches below full, or 25 inches below its normal level for this time of year, Melton said.
Last year at this time, the reservoir was about 30 inches below normal levels.
Melton gave a lot of credit for the improvement to conservation efforts that have reduced the city’s overall water consumption by 24 percent since mandatory restrictions took effect in September.
With those restrictions, residents could use water on Saturday and Sunday.
In February, the city tightened restrictions, extending a prohibition on irrigating with city water to seven days a week.
Recently, the city said residents could plant and landscapers could conduct business, but neither could use city water to irrigate by hose. They had to carry the water in containers or have it hauled from outside the city.
City officials expect to make some of the conservation efforts permanent. Pillowtex has cut out wasteful practices that used a million gallons a day, and Hales said he expects that to continue.
And the city expects to add another million gallons a day to the water entering the system next month, when it begins buying that much from Concord, which will get the water from Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
Adding that to the 7.5 million gallons pumped daily from Lake Howell and Second Creek in Rowan County, city leaders hope, will keep the water level at Kannapolis Lake on the rise.
Still, several City Council members at their meeting Monday gave only a reserved endorsement to easing restrictions, an administrative measure which does not require council approval.
“I have some reservations, because I think it might be premature, especially with the rainfall we’ve had this month,” Mayor Pro Tem Ken Geathers said. “But I agree ... we need to do the same thing (as Concord) to avoid confusion.”
But if the area doesn’t see some rain soon, he said, “we need to fall back.”
Today's News
