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Fairhope City Council called a special emergency meeting Monday morning to discuss officially declaring a phase three water emergency.

Mayor Sherry Sullivan thanked council for calling the emergency meeting Monday at 11:45 a.m.

“I am asking you to enact phase three of the water conservation ordinance. Right now, what is happening is our tanks are not having time to recover. We are pulling down so much water,” Sullivan said. “It is not an issue of water supply. It is an issue of the tanks having enough time to recover. What this is causing is low water pressure and also a lot of brown water.

“The biggest culprit we have is irrigation and the weather patterns. We are seeing some excessive heat and a drought for us. We are so used to seeing 2 to 3 inches of rain this time of year, two to three times a week and we are just not seeing that right now.”

The Fairhope water conservation phases has three levels:

Phase One is enacted when water demand reaches an average of 80% capacity over seven consecutive days. This phase, called a water alert, asks all City of Fairhope water system users to voluntarily limit water use.

Phase Two is enacted when water demand reaches an average of 90% capacity over seven consecutive days. This phase, a water warning, is mandatory. Customers are asked to limit irrigation and outdoor water uses to:

• Odd-numbered street address will water Monday and Wednesday
• Even-numbered street address will water Tuesday and Thursday
• No irrigation shall be performed between the hours of 5-9 a.m. and 5-9 p.m.
• No watering will be allowed Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Phase Three is enacted when water demand reaches an average of 100% over three consecutive days. This phase, a water emergency, required mandatory compliance and the possibility of fines. During this phase:

• Irrigation for the purpose of watering lawns, gardens, landscaped areas, trees is prohibited.
• Washing of private vehicles is prohibited Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
• Commercial car washes and service stations are exempt from this restriction.
• Swimming pools will be filled by users of water at street addresses containing off numbers Monday and Wednesday and even numbers Tuesday and Thursday.
• Washing of sidewalks, driveways, parking areas, tennis courts, patios or other paved areas is absolutely prohibited except by the street department and fire department to alleviate health or fire hazard.
• Taking water from a fire hydrant is prohibited without written permission from the city of Fairhope. The water system, street department and fire department are exempt from this condition in order to properly maintain the water system and provide for public health and safety.

Council President Jay Robinson said he wanted to get some clarification and asked Sullivan, “This is not a low supply issue. It is just that our tanks are not able to fill up which is affecting the water pressure provided to our customers. What can we do not just temporarily? Do we need another tank? We have been working so much on the water supply, additional wells, transmission lines and all that. It seems we are OK with supply and transmission it is just retention and pressure right now is the problem?”

“Yes, and I do think we are going to need an additional water tank,” Sullivan responded to Robinson’s questions. “Right now, we are working on those additional wells to be able to get those additional 2 million gallons of water. I do think you will see those come online the first quarter of the year. Hopefully in March.

“We also have a test well and we have identified another parcel where we are going to do some preliminary drilling to see if we can get some good water out of some aquifers on an additional piece of land,” Sullivan said. “I think we are doing the things we need to do to make sure we have the increased supply we need. But yes, we will need the storage capacity. I do think that in the coming year you are going to hear about another water tank.”

The City of Fairhope has been in different phases of water emergency on and off all summer. Sullivan reiterated to council that the irrigation of lawns is the biggest issue.

“No matter how much we continue to preach to people to please irrigate overnight, coming into work this morning and going to the pickleball courts, I passed four different places that were running their irrigation this morning,” Sullivan said. “I did send code enforcement to visit those people and tell them we are under the voluntary phase and to please irrigate overnight. People just aren’t paying attention.”

“We have used all outlets we can for communication whether through HOAs, social media, we have been on the TV. I just don’t know what to do other than enact this phase three and again this could mean fines up to $500. We will be sending the police department and code enforcement along with other city representatives if we see people irrigating to ask them to stop. If they don’t there could be other penalties.”

City council voted unanimously to declare a phase three water emergency for customers of City of Fairhope Water. This does not affect those with well water.