WHITE OAK, Texas — In this drought-driven season, our water supply continues to shrink.
The city of White Oak took the initiative to implement a voluntary water conservation plan, asking residents to cut back or minimize non-essential water usage.
City Manager Jimmy Purcell explained the conservation effort put into place by the city is stage one of a five-step plan.
"We don't want to, but it may come down to possibly writing citations to citizens who are not doing their part," Purcell said.
More than 6,000 people live in White Oak. When the town was originally developed, a plan to pull water from Big Sandy seemed fitting during the town's farming days.
"Big Sandy Creek is 16 miles away," Purcell said. "White Oak, at the time, never did anything to find a closer resource."
Purcell said a plan is in development to pull water from closer resources.
"That comes at a price," Purcell said. "To get water from Sabine, that's roughly an $8 million project."
For now, White Oak runs dry, they call on neighboring Longview for help.
According to city of Longview spokesman Richard Yeakley, the city has three resources providing approximately 52 million gallons of water per day.
"Where we have excess [water] it's good to work with neighboring communities," Yeakley said. "We've been really fortunate and blessed where people have planned for our water usage."
So far in July, the city has been running below it's max capacity or peak demand.
"We're averaging mid-20s to high-20s [millions of gallons] per day," Yeakley said.
City officials agree that reducing non-essential water usage will help everyone as Texas continues to face hot and dry conditions.