The City's Wells Ran 16 Hours a Day in August. Your Watering Days Now Depend on Your House Number.
By The Magnolia Standard · September 15, 2026
Stage 1 is a request: two days a week, before ten in the morning or after eight at night. Stage 2 is an order, and the man who runs the wells says it could come "ASAP."
The City of Magnolia asked its water customers to cut back on August 27. On September 8 the City Council made it official, voting to authorize Stage 1 of the city's drought contingency plan. Stage 1 is voluntary. The stage after it is not.
The numbers behind the vote came from Public Works Director Charles Stroud. In August the city's wells pumped about 87 million gallons, and customers used 85 to 86 million of them. To keep up, the wells ran 16 to 17 hours a day. "That's extremely excessive," Stroud told the council.
The plan's triggers are written as a share of what the wells can produce. Stage 1 starts when daily use tops 50 percent of the city's combined pumping capacity for five straight days. Stage 2 starts at 60 percent for five straight days. Stage 3 is 70 percent, and the city got there in the second week of August 2022.
What Stage 1 asks
The goal is a 5 percent cut in demand, and the city is asking for it mainly in the yard. Outdoor watering goes on a schedule by house number.
- Even-numbered addresses: Sundays and Thursdays.
- Odd-numbered addresses: Saturdays and Wednesdays.
- On those days: midnight to 10 a.m., or 8 p.m. to midnight.
Nobody gets a citation for watering on a Tuesday under Stage 1. It is a request. What Stroud asked residents to watch for is the sprinkler that runs off the curb into the street, and the system that keeps going after the lawn is already soaked. That water was pumped, treated and billed, and then it went down a storm drain.
City staff will check a house for leaks and reset an irrigation timer at no charge. That offer stands whether or not you think you have a leak; a timer set in May does not know it is September.
What Stage 2 would mean
Stage 2 is mandatory. The target becomes a 15 percent cut. Stroud said the city could move there "ASAP" if the voluntary stage does not bring the pumping hours down.
The current notice covers Stage 1. For what a mandatory stage looks like in practice, the closest guide is August 2022, when the city went to Stage 3. The same two days by address and the same hours, with the word must in place of please. Hand-held hoses, buckets of five gallons or less and drip lines allowed any time. Pools filled only on your watering day and in your watering window. Restaurants serving water only when a customer asks. No washing down a driveway or a sidewalk, and a leak you could fix and have not is a violation on its own. In 2022 a citation carried a fine of up to $2,000 per occurrence, and the stage came off only after 14 straight days under its trigger.
Who this applies to
The city's water customers, which for the most part means addresses inside the city limits. Most people with a Magnolia mailing address live outside them, on a municipal utility district or a private utility with its own plan and its own triggers. If the water bill does not come from the City of Magnolia, this schedule is not yours. Your provider almost certainly has one, and it is worth a look at the bill to find out who that is. We wrote about the three kinds of Magnolia water bill in August, at /magnolia-water-rates-puc/.
The month that did it
Montgomery County came out of August 2.59 inches of rain below normal, its sixth-driest August in 132 years of records, according to federal climate data published at drought.gov. The year through August was running 1.32 inches short. That is not a historic drought. It was a very dry month at the end of a hot summer, with every sprinkler system in town making up the difference, and the wells felt it.
The plan comes off the same way it goes on, by the numbers. When pumping drops back under the trigger and stays there, the stage lifts. Until then the city's ask is two days a week, before ten or after eight, and a look at where the sprinkler water is actually going.
Sources: Community Impact's September 9, 2026 report on the September 8 City Council meeting (the Stage 1 authorization, the August pumping and consumption figures, the 16-to-17-hour figure, the Stage 1 and Stage 2 triggers and targets, the watering schedule and hours, Public Works Director Charles Stroud's statements, the free leak checks and timer adjustments), as also carried by ABC13 on September 10; the City of Magnolia's August 27, 2026 water conservation notice; Community Impact's August 10, 2022 report on the city's Stage 3 declaration (the 70 percent trigger, the mandatory rules, the fine, the 14-day lifting rule); NOAA climate data for Montgomery County as published at drought.gov, data through September 13, 2026 (the August and year-to-date rainfall figures). Corrections to editor@themagnoliastandard.news.