Effective June 15th through September 15th we will go to Stage 2 of the Water Conservation Plan.
PLEASE OBSERVE CONSERVATION SIGNS FOR CHANGES
Stage 2 Policies (Yellow)
An address with an odd numbered last digit will water on odd numbered calendar days. An address with an even numbered last digit will water on even numbered calendar days.
Avoid Watering during the following hours:
Regular monthly bill mailed on or about the 24th of each month and due within 16 days.
Disconnect Notice (second notice) mailed on or about the 12th of each month and due within 10 days.
Bartonville Water Supply Corporation will no longer place "door hangers" at the address of delinquent/past due accounts as a reminder prior to disconnection. Bartonville Water Supply Corporation will, as required by the Texas Water Code, continue as always to mail all members/customers a regular monthly bill, with a due date of the 8th or 9th of the month. In addition, Bartonville Water Supply Corporation will continue to mail a second, red lettered "Disconnect Notice" with due date prior to disconnection. Membership/customer growth within our service area makes continuing this additional notification impracticable.
The amount shown on the Disconnection notice must be received in the office by 3:00pm on the due date shown to continue service without interruption and avoid a twenty five-dollar reconnection fee. If you are unable to meet the due date you must call and make arrangements with the office on or before the due date shown.
Landscape Watering Facts
The early, long-term forecast of a wetter-than-average spring is becoming a faint memory; more a mirage than an oasis. Although it’s still early to speak of a weather disaster, our local area officially recorded only 3.50 inches of rain during April and May this year. Our 83-year rainfall average for April and May is 10.08 inches, our two wettest months of the year. Not so this year. The sub-soil moisture is all gone.
Water leaves the soil in three ways. The first two ways are evaporation from the soil surface, and transpiration through the plant, which combined represent the evapo-transpiration (ET) rate. The third way is seepage into groundwater, which only occurs under saturated ground conditions when people are not watering anyway.
Think of your soil as a water bank. If you apply water to the soil and it soaks in without running off, it is locked in for your plant’s benefit and use. The only way you lose by banking water is when you saturate the ground right before a rain and the rainwater can’t soak in, an unlikely scenario under current conditions.
The most common watering mistakes are watering too shallow and watering too often. Now that the sub-soil moisture is gone, soil moisture is limited to the soil depth you wet. The deeper you wet the soil the deeper the roots can go. How deep are your roots?
One inch of water per application is sufficient for turf. Trees have deeper roots and benefit from deeper watering. Two inches of water every third watering in the absence of rain is sufficient for trees. Watering rods help replace deeper moisture in hard-to-wet soils.
Extending your watering intervals makes plant roots search for moisture which deepen and enlarges the roots system. Stressing plants for moisture hardens them to drought so they actually use less water after being stressed. Frequent watering not only promotes diseases but it also forces the oxygen out of the soil for several hours following each application. Have you ever seen grass wilt after a rain? Plant roots require oxygen to imbibe water.
Under normal summer conditions most turfgrasses use about one inch per week. To determine when you have applied this amount, place five coffee cans in the watering pattern of your sprinkler head or sprinkler zone. Turn your system on and record the time is takes to fill the coffee cans one inch deep. Check delivery rates for each sprinkler zone or hose/head combination.
If your soil will not absorb one inch of water before is runs off, shut the water off, and resume watering after the initial application has had time to soak in. If you have an automatic sprinkler system you can run through your cycles several times.
The Texas Agricultural Extension Service has a web site which lists evapo-transpiration (ET) rates for selected sites across the state based on observed temperatures, relative humidity, solar radiation, rainfall, wind speed, and crop coefficients. During May, the North Texas site in Irving averaged about one inch per week for Bermuda grass. Check it out at http://texaset.tamu.edu.
Remember that when considering a new landscape or additions, Xeriscape makes cents. Xeriscape uses native and adapted varieties of plants that thrive in our climate. These plants can be attractive and low water using as well. Fact: it is estimated that 40-60 percent of the water used in urban areas is used for landscape and garden watering and much of that is wasted through over watering, runoff, evaporation and the use of plants that demand a great deal of water. Contact the BWSC office for more information.
Thanks go to Mr. John Cooper, Denton CEA-Horticulture for the preceding information.
Mulching is simply using layers of organic or inorganic materials to cover the top of the soil. Some examples of (Organic) mulch are: bark mulch, shredded bark, decorative bark, and peat moss. Examples of (Inorganic) mulch are: landscape fabric, black plastic, and decorative rocks. There is a disadvantage of using inorganic mulches which is that plants do not benefit from the release of nutrients as the mulch breaks down like they would if organic mulch is used. Mulch can be done in different ways; you can use just one type or a combination.
The Benefits of mulching are:
1.Mulches conserve water by reducing evaporation from the soil moisture. 2. Mulch insulates the soil and protects it from the drying wind and hot sun. Soil with 2 to 3 inches of mulch can be as much as 10 to 15 degrees cooler. 3.The mulch breaks the force of rain and irrigation water. This helps in more than one way. It tends to prevent erosion, soil compaction, and crusting. Mulch also reduces splashing and the spreading of soil born diseases. 4. By mulching you can also reduce the growth of weeds. Reduction of weeds is great for the plants as well as you. Without weeds the plants do not have to compete for water and nutrients. This leaves you less weeds to deal with and more time to appreciate the beauty. 5. Mulch gives a nice finished look to landscaping.
We have received a number of customer complaints recently regarding the failure of the postal service to deliver Bartonville Water Supply Corporation’s water bills. Bartonville Water Supply Corporation mails its water bills directly from the Lewisville Post Office regularly each month between the 20th and 24th. If you do not receive a bill by the first of any month, it is your responsibility to notify the Corporation office since we can only assume that your water bill has been delivered by the Post Office.
Effective July 1, 1998 some of our customers’ zip codes will change to 75077. All of our customers’ addresses will be verified by The United States Post Office. This verification will be done in approximately the next thirty days. Therefore, it will not be necessary for you to notify us of the change. Until the Post Office gets its correction disk, it will continue to except the current zip code.
Bartonville Water Supply Corp. recently awarded Preload Inc. the contract for construction of a new 2 MG (million gallon) ground storage water tank at its Copper Hill pump station. The tank will be constructed of pre-stressed concrete, and will eliminate the need for frequent/costly interior repainting which is necessary with steel storage tanks.
Three large capacity booster pumps along with related piping and controls will also be installed at this site to assist in meeting current and future system demands as well as an auxiliary power generator to insure uninterrupted service even during times of local power outages.
The Board of Directors and staff would like to thank the Town of Copper Canyon for granting approval of the conditional use permit necessary for construction of the project. Construction should begin in August 1998.
Change in Water Treatment
If you’ve noticed a change in the taste of BWSC’s water, it is a result of a change in our water treatment process.
Since we are now blending surface water from the Upper Trinity Regional Water District (treated with a combination of chlorine and ammonia) with water from our wells (treated with chlorine only), it was necessary to change to one uniform treatment process. Since all water from our remaining six pump stations is treated with chlorine only and in an effort to keep from adding additional chemicals (ammonia) to our water, the chlorine only process was selected.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to call the office.
Joe Graves President
Scott Kilpatrick Vice- President
Larry Kaufman Secretary-Treasurer
Kevin Alberts Director
Phillip Block Director
Jan Loeckle Director
Gary Marco Director
Public Service Announcement
YOUR TIME IS NEEDED NOW!!!!
The Argyle Volunteer Fire District
is in need of additional Volunteers. For information and explanations please call:
Fire Chief: Ed Klir (940) 464-7102
Asst. Chief: James Price (817) 430-1116