McALLEN — The McAllen Public Utility is requiring residents to conserve water usage and is implementing its Stage 2 water conservation plan due to low water levels at reservoirs.

Beginning Monday, McAllen residents and businesses who are customers of the MPU will be required to restrict irrigation to certain days depending on where they live.

The use of sprinkler systems will only be allowed between the hours of midnight to 10 a.m. and then again from 6 p.m. to midnight on their designated days.

The city is split up into six zones for the designated days, with 10th Street serving as the dividing line between the west and east sides of the city.

>> Zone 1: west of 10th and north of Nolana Avenue, can irrigate on Sunday and Wednesday

>> Zone 2: east of 10th Street and north of Nolana Avenue, can irrigate on Monday and Thursday

>> Zone 3: west of 10th Street between Nolana and Business 83, can irrigate on Tuesday and Friday

>> Zone 4: east of 10th Street between Nolana and Business 83, can irrigate on Wednesday and Saturday

>> Zone 5: Anything south of Business 83 and west of 10th Street, can irrigate on Monday and Thursday

>> Zone 6: east of 10th Street and south of Business 83, can irrigate on Tuesday and Friday

For the purposes of the restrictions, a water sprinkler system is anything that sprays water into the air with the purpose of covering a lawn, hedge or plant bedding, the city said in a news release.

Additionally, water from irrigation systems running into the gutter, ditch or drain is also restricted. There can be no washing of paved areas, including sidewalks, driveways, parking areas and tennis courts, except to prevent fire hazards. Ornamental fountains without a recycling system are not allowed, and no car wash fundraisers may be held.

Exempt from that are commercial car washes with recycling systems. Residents and businesses are reminded to fix all water leaks. Vehicles may only be washed on designated irrigation days and times with a soap bucket and water cut-off hose. Swimming pools may be refilled on designated zone irrigation days from midnight to 10:00 a.m. and from 8:00 p.m. to midnight.

What is allowed are hand-held hose or watering any time of any day with no restrictions as long as the hose or can is in the residents’ hands and not unattended. Drip irrigation may also be used without restrictions. Drip irrigation includes commercial systems, a home-made system or a drip irrigation hose.

Those who violate the ordinance and use a sprinkler system outside of the designated hours and/or days are subject to fines.

“The point of Stage 2 is to reduce consumption by 2% and the way we go about that is by implementing these six city sections with their designated days and designated times,” said Mark Vega, general manager for McAllen Public Utility.

Vega said the restrictions were put in place because the combined water levels at the Falcon International Reservoir and the Amistad Reservoir are presumed to have fallen below 25%.

The MPU doesn’t know the actual current levels at the dams, Vega said, because they haven’t received an update from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, since July 2 when the levels were just above 25%.

“They still haven’t come out with (an update) but we know it’s below 25%,” Vega said, “so if we wait for them to finally come out with an update, we might be at Stage 3 not Stage 2.”

He added that the delay in the update from TCEQ was because U.S. and Mexican officials hadn’t agreed on what the water level was at the Falcon Dam and how much water was flowing into it from the Mexican side.

“So they’re disputing that and they want to get that squared before they update it, but we can’t wait for that,” he said. “We’re going to go ahead now to implement our Stage 2 water restrictions.”

Last week, the International Boundary and Water Commission held a meeting in Weslaco in which TCEQ Commissioner Bobby Janecka painted a possibly dire outlook for the water supply.

IBWC Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner also mentioned communities were reaching out with concerns about their water intake.

But Vega doesn’t view the situation quite as alarming as that.

“The way that our system works is there are provisions in place to ensure that municipalities get their water,” Vega said. “And so they will reduce the amount of water that goes to agriculture first and agriculture is what uses most of the water, by far — it’s about four to one — so agriculture uses about 80% of the water, cities use about 20% and so they have a system of reserve in those reservoirs — about 225,000 acre feet.”

The 225,000 acre feet, he said, amounted to approximately 73 billion gallons of water.

“That’s a lot of water and so they always keep that reserve for cities,” Vega said. “Does that guarantee that there’s going to be water for five years? There are no guarantees, but our system is in place to ensure that municipalities receive water.”

The last time the city had to implement Stage 2 restrictions was nearly 10 years ago, in 2013 and the time before that was also about 10 years prior.

“It’s cyclical,” Vega said. “So it’s not really a surprise.”

“Having said that, could we use a major storm to fill the reservoirs? Absolutely, and that’s what’s historically happened,” he said. “We’re in the same shoes that we’ve been in 10 years ago, that we were 20 years ago and 30 years ago, and so on and so on.”