FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 2, 2000

CARY, NC – Businesses, apartment complexes, homeowners’ associations, and all other non-residential water customers in Cary and Apex may resume appropriate outdoor watering starting tomorrow, Tuesday. This ends the restrictions that began on June 14^th when officials first prohibited about 2000 non-residential water customers in Cary and those in Apex from watering grass and lawns and from using any automated outdoor watering systems to irrigate landscape materials. As a result of the restrictions, millions of gallons of water were saved each day and no restrictions were needed for any of Cary or Apex’s tens of thousands of residential customers.

"While we wish restrictions would not have been necessary at all this year, we made every effort to impact as few customers as possible in order to maintain the integrity of our system," said Cary Town Manager Bill Coleman. Coleman and Apex counterpart Bill Sutton enacted the restrictions following days of consistent, record peak hourly demand from which the Cary-Apex water system could not fully recover. The restrictions also followed a June 8^th vote by the Cary Town Council to eliminate weekend watering for all non-residential customers beginning July 1^st, but that directive was never put into place as record demand soon followed, causing the June 14^th prohibition.

All water customers in Cary are reminded of the permanent year-round, alternate day watering plan, including "no watering Mondays" and the addressed-based alternate day schedule for all users, residential and non-residential. That is, all customers—residential and non-residential--with an odd-numbered street address may water outdoors only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Customers with even-numbered street addresses may water only on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Cary began mandatory year-round alternate day watering on May 1^st.

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