Water levels in the region have gotten so low that Tampa Bay Water has stopped siphoning from local rivers.
The continuing drought and lack of rain have forced the agency to rely solely on underground wells and its desalination plant in Apollo Beach.
Standing on a dry intake pipe on the Alafia River, Chief Science Officer Warren Hogg said it's below the level needed to withdraw any water.
"We are not taking anything from local rivers," he said. "Flows are so low we can't take any water for the region, for our system. All the water we use in our surface water plant now is from the regional reservoir."
"We have water stored in our regional reservoir, which holds 15.5 billion gallons when full. It's now dropped to 7, so we're more than halfway into our savings account. We've got 3 months of the dry season to go," he continued.
The authority has also stopped taking water from the Hillsborough River. The city of Tampa is continuing to withdraw drinking water from its reservoir on the Hillsborough River.
Hogg issued an appeal for people to conserve water. Outdoor watering is restricted in most areas to once a week. He said if not enough water is conserved, restrictions may be tightened to allow only watering by hand.
"It would be hand watering only with a garden hose and a nozzle, and that's really hard to do for a yard," he said.
We started taking water out of our reservoir in mid-October. Typically, we would start taking water out now, so we're very early dipping into our savings account.
"The last time we were in this type of situation was about two years ago in the spring, when rainfall was very low for the preceding 12 months and demand was getting high," Hogg said. "So we've had two really bad droughts in the last two years. This one is about the worst we've seen in the last 50."
