Water Usage Has Not Returned to Pre-Drought Levels.
"We couldn’t even sell desert plants during the drought.
Now, the plant nursery is back open — after more frequent periods of rainfall.
"So of course, it’s much, much better now, but people are still concerned about water uses.
Many of them are still asking about plants that are easier to care for and don’t require as much water," Smith said.
Smith’s customers’ business patterns seem to match water usage patterns in the City of Wichita Falls.
"But, we started to see it increase back to somewhat normal levels, but we are still lower than we were before we went into the drought," Daniel Nix, Utilities Operations Manager, said.
"It never got over 600 million for the month and in July and August we are typically around a billion gallons a month," Nix said.
"We still are not seeing the level of people buying the enormous quantities of bedding plants that they bought before the drought," Smith said.
"We were in a drought for four years — and so if you learn a habit and you do it for four years, you’re not just going to wake up one day and stop doing that," Nix said.