KYLE, Texas — With the ongoing drought, the City of Kyle is turning to its neighbors further south for water.
The dry conditions have affected Kyle homeowners like Brad Rademachir who has been watering his lawn just one day every other week since the city is under water restrictions.
"We used to do a lot of things with our grandkids in the backyard," Rademachir said. "So we can't have a little splash pad and fill up that little swimming pool we had for them."
Last month, Kyle officials held a special meeting to discuss buying water from San Marcos. This week, the San Marcos City Council voted to sell water on a temporary basis to Kyle, which has used 89% of its water from the Edwards Aquifer for the year.
On Monday, Oct. 2, the City of Kyle agreed to the terms required to buy water from the City of San Marcos. Under the agreement, Kyle will have to impose the same drought restrictions as San Marcos for the rest of the year.
Kyle will also have to pay San Marcos a little less than $8,000 per month. That's on top of a volume charge of $3.21 cents per 1,000 gallons used.
San Marcos said it would give Kyle a water meter measurement in January, and Kyle city leaders will pay their bill 20 days after they get it.
"By releasing the water from San Marcos, we're able to ensure that even with our very tight restrictions, that we're able to supply water to our entire city," Kyle Assistant City Manager Jerry Hendrix said.
Conservation is necessary because Hendrix said the city's water resources are stressed due to record-setting heat and little rain.
"We didn't really recharge our water resources when it was raining because it didn't rain enough, so that kind of just amplifies the situation that we're in right now," Hendrix said.
The City has been working on getting additional water and is a year and a half away from the first phase.
There's been work to get water for a decade, but the project got behind schedule due to factors like the pandemic. The City is building a water utility that will bring water from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer. Other cities like San Marcos and Buda are joining in on the effort.
"With the increased population here, they're going to have to rethink what they're doing," Rademachir said.