GROESBECK, Texas, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- A small town in Texas in the grip of record-setting drought faces the possibility it will run out of water by the first week in December, officials said.
Groesbeck is one of 11 cities and communities on a state agency list of those most at risk of running out of water in six months if there is no significant rain, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday.
Groesbeck, population 6,000, runs out of water on Dec. 6 according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
"I go to sleep with water on my mind and I wake up with water on my mind," Groesbeck Mayor Jackie Levingston said. "I'm very anxious about it."
The city gets its water directly from the Navasota River and a local reservoir, but the worst one-year drought in history has significantly slowed the flow of the springs and all but dried up the river and Fort Parker Lake.
The city normally uses 700,000 to 800,000 gallons of water a day.
In September, Levingston instituted Stage 3 water restrictions, which included an outright ban on all yard watering, and usage dropped to about 600,000 gallons a day.
"We're going to have to stay in Stage 3, which of course kills everybody's grass, everybody's plants outside all of that, which takes away the beauty," she said. "But … do they want the beauty, or do they want the water?"
