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College Station breaks own record for most water used in one day, raising concerns

College Station residents use 26.7 million gallons in just one day
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Posted at 5:04 PM, Jul 29, 2022
and last updated 2022-07-29 18:04:44-04

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Twenty-six point seven million. 26,700,000.

That's not the size of the Mega Millions jackpot - that's how many gallons of water College Station residents and businesses used on Wednesday of this week.

Over one million gallons of water used per hour has officially broken a record, as this is the most ever used in College Station's known history, according to Jennifer Nations from the city's water resources department.

Just a couple of weeks ago, when KRHD spoke with Nations, numbers lower than Wednesdays were already concerning.

"We’re keeping up, but I don’t like to run that high because it doesn’t give us any buffer if we have a big piece of equipment go down or have a water leak, something like that," Nations told KRHD.

The immense use of water for irrigation has contributed to a recent increase in water main breaks, according to Nations.

She stressed that irrigation is the main cause of this over-usage, and that daily baths, showers, and laundry runs are not the problem.

The city already mandates year-round that residents not water between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Now they are asking residents to voluntarily restrict irrigation to just two times every week.