The City of Rehoboth Beach asked residents on Saturday to limit irrigation after record water use.
With the heat, tourists and little rainfall, the city used about 400,000 gallons more per day over last weekend compared to the same time last year, according to the city’s public works director, Henry Matlosz.
The period surrounding Independence Day fireworks displays typically bring increased water usage, but this year's data was especially high, according to Matlosz.
In an effort to conserve water, the city requested residents to adjust their water usage specifically for irrigation.
“It's not a restriction in any way,” Matlosz said. “It's just a request, and it's something that, for example, the electric utilities do it often when they know they're going to have peak usage... they ask people to conserve.”
The city requests those with odd-numbered addresses irrigate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and those with even-numbered addresses irrigate on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
“This is just an area that we can very easily ask our customers, our residents and businesses to conserve a little and spread out the usage,” Matlosz said.
The city is not likely to make any other requests or put any restrictions in place to conserve water in the near future. Matlosz says Monday and Tuesday’s water usage was more in line with previous years.
