By By Adrienne McKenzie
Because of the current lack of rain, conservation of water has become an important factor for keeping Atmore's water supply adequate.
City of Atmore's Utilities Board manager Tom Wolfe said the utilities board is currently requesting that people not wastefully use water. However, Wolfe said Atmore is not in dire straits just yet.
"Right now we are asking people to limit their watering of lawns and washing of cars and things like that," Wolfe said. "We are monitoring the wells and right now we think everything is OK. If we keep having rain we probably won't have to go to a voluntary lawn watering like we did last year. We are monitoring the wells monthly and right now we are OK."
Wolfe said that because of the little bit of rain Atmore has experienced within the past couple of days, the water levels should not concern residents.
"Right now levels are adequate," Wolfe said. "We are just asking people to help us by conserving and not being wasteful."
If the rain does not continue to bless Atmore with its presence, some measures may have to be taken.
"The first step would be the voluntary watering program," Wolfe said when asked what would happen if people do not conserve water and if there are not any more significant rainfalls. "Hopefully nothing more drastic than that would occur. If it keeps raining we won't have to do anything at all."
Wolfe said that for inquiring minds, there is a fascinating piece of information about rainfall.
"An interesting fact is that the rain we get today or yesterday, it takes about 10 years for it to come back to us," he said. "It takes 10 years to filter through the earth's surface."
Because of the time it takes to filter back to us, the water we have today is about 10 years old.
To ensure Atmore's water supplies stay adequate, following are some water conservation tips: