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Jacksonville residents concerned by low water pressure, mandated sprinkler times

By Ryan Nelson, Action News Jax and Action News Jax
By Ryan Nelson, Action News Jax and Action News Jax

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Some northeast Florida neighbors say they’re getting low water pressure and their lawns are going brown because of the dry spell we’ve seen in recent weeks.

Now JEA is pushing neighbors to save water on things like irrigation and showering, and the utility says problems are due to high demand in the dry season.

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They’re also alerting neighbors to mandated lawn watering times.

Odd-numbered houses or homes with no address can water Wednesday and Saturday.

Even numbered houses may water Thursday and Sunday, and nonresidential properties, may water Tuesday and Friday.

Neighbors tell Action News Jax they feel like they’re running out of options.

“Issues have been water pressure,” said John Colbert of the Shearwater neighborhood in St. Johns County. “And the other issues have been conservation of the water to do the grass.”

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JEA’s mandated watering schedule for daylight time began in March and will run through November.

Neighbors who, like Colbert, live in St. Johns County but get their water from JEA, hope their lawns survive the summer.

St. Johns County Utilities is asking customers to make similar adjustments.

The utility released the following statement last week:

“Water demands have dramatically increased throughout St. Johns County due to a recent lack of rainfall and historically high temperatures. St. Johns County Utilities is urging customers to help conserve water by observing mandatory irrigation schedules and reducing water usage whenever possible. Please refer to the irrigation schedule below for your property:  

  • Homes with odd numbered or no addresses may irrigate on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
  • Homes with even numbered addresses may irrigate on Thursdays and Sundays. 
  •  Nonresidential properties may irrigate on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Please do not irrigate between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. For more information on water conservation or irrigation regulations, please visit www.sjcfl.us/utilities/ or call 904.209.2700.”

JEA sent the following statement today:

"During drought conditions, customers tend to use more water than normal for irrigation, putting a lot of demands on our water supply.  JEA is able to produce about 103 million gallons of water  per day in the South Grid.  When the demand approaches this (it reached nearly 102 MGD on Saturday), one option is to reduce the pressure that the system maintains.  When pressure is reduced, flow is reduced, and less water is consumed.  This allows JEA to still serve our customers without running out of water."

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