(Avoca, IA) -- A boil order for five southwest Iowa counties is lifted, but water usage restrictions remain in place.
On Friday, the Regional Water Rural Water District announced that the Boil Advisory has been lifted, but the mandatory water usage restrictions remain in effect. The boil order went into effect on May 25th following a system pressure issue. The District says the restrictions will prevent continued system pressure due to ongoing drought conditions and the reduced availability of water in the Avoca Wellfield.
The affected area includes Shelby, Audubon, Cass, Harrison, and Northern Pottawattamie counties. Included are the communities of Avoca, Portsmouth, Westphalia, Kirkman, Tennant, Panama, Earling, Exira, Persia, and Brayton.
Municipal, residential, agricultural, commercial, and industrial users will be required to continue the following mandatory reduction measures:
- No watering or irrigation of lawns whatsoever. Watering of flowers, vegetable gardens, trees or shrubs less than four years old, and new seedlings and sod is permitted once per week, with an application not to exceed one inch and only between the hours of 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM.
- No car washing, except at commercial establishments that provide that service as their only means of income. In these cases, hours of use will be restricted to 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
- No water shall be used to fill private swimming pools, children’s wading pools, or similar articles.
- No water shall be used to clean streets, driveways, sidewalks, etc.
- Large volume water users, including industries, motels, hotels, eating establishments, and livestock confinements are requested to scale back services and/or production.
- Schools are strongly urged to cancel their physical education activities and inter-scholastic competitions that require showers or attract crowds and take other actions to reduce water consumption.