Amid drought, Spartanburg Water asks all customers to conserve water as data center goes up on Pine Street
SPARTANBURG — Spartanburg Water is now asking all customers — not just Landrum, but everyone — to conserve water amid a severe drought across the entire state.
Despite the damp forecast for the next week, the 9-month rain deficit is so large that the wet weather won’t alleviate the current drought conditions.
“Out of an abundance of caution, with drought conditions expected to persist, Spartanburg Water is requesting that all customers consider voluntary water use restrictions and actions,” the utility said in a May 21 news release.
The request comes as downtown Spartanburg is growing and as residents have increasingly gotten upset about a data center being built on S. Pine Street that’s projected to use around 460,000 gallons of water per day — roughly 2,000 times as much as the average residential customer — with about 85 percent of that being lost to evaporation. The data center is expected to start operations later this year.
Spartanburg Water has said the data center water use will represent between 1.8 percent and 2.3 percent of the current average daily demand, and does not expect it to impact residential water service.
Spartanburg Water is also currently asking residents to only water their yards at night between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. to reduce evaporation and take other precautions to reduce water use.
The utility is asking customers with street addresses, box numbers or rural route numbers ending in 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or the letters A through M, and locations without addresses to only use outdoor water Thursday and Sunday, and everyone else to use outdoor water only on Wednesday and Saturday.
It asks residents to refrain from washing their boats, cars and outdoor surfaces like driveways and sidewalks, to inspect and repair leaky toilets, faucets and pipes, to take shorter showers and to use dishwashers and clothes washers only with full loads.
It’s also requesting that golf courses and businesses reduce irrigation of their grounds and that restaurants serve water only to customers who ask.