The Pflugerville City Council approved at its June 25 meeting amendments to the city's drought contingency plan, effective immediately.

The amendments will affect water use restrictions for residents, citations for water violations and how the city measures drought levels.

One amendment will base city water restrictions on levels at Lakes Travis and Buchanan as measured by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Restrictions were formerly based on aquifer levels, but the city no longer uses ground water from wells. The change allows the city to implement conservation measures based surface level water amounts.

In the past, the municipal court has cited and heard cases for watering violations implemented under the drought contingency plan, but a second change now gives the city's Public Works Department the authority to issue citations. With the administrative change came new rules in water violation consequences, which reset every 12 months after the first violation.

The penalties for water violations include a yellow violation notice and information on the water schedule sent to customers for a first violation; a red notice, a letter from the city outlining the water violation and a visit to the violating customer from city staff to discuss how to conserve and comply with the water restrictions on the second violation; a letter from the city and a $100 administrative fee added to the customer's water bill for the third violation; and a certified letter or phone call from the city that the violating customer's water is being turned off for the last violation. There is a $50 reconnect fee, a $100 charge and the customer would have to wait up to one business day to have water turned back on if it is disconnected.

"While there won't be water police out there per se, there will be water educators out there," Pflugerville City Manager Brandon Wade said. "The first step will be education, followed by first, second and third strikes."

Other changes include enforcing mandatory stage two water restrictions from March 1–Oct. 31 every year, implementing once per week watering restrictions with hand watering allowed at any time if the city reaches stage three restrictions (considered severe drought conditions) and restricting residents to once per week handwatering between 7–10 a.m. or 7–10 p.m. in stage four restrictions, which would call for drought conditions more severe than the state's worst drought on record.