Albuquerque could see mandatory water restrictions Video

extreme drought be sending us toward all-out mandatory water restrictions unless things change fast. eddie garcia joins us live downtown to tell us how soon that could happen. eddie? the national weather service says new mexico hasn't had this dry of a start in 114 years. with that in consideration - the water authority is gearing up to take action. this weekend in albuquerque is not looking very wet at all. the weather maps and numbers all show it - we're in one serious drought. in albuquerque this is the driest start to any year that we've seen since 1897 which means there's no one around who probably seen it any drier. and with only 15-hundreths of an inch of rain so far this year - it's not looking better anytime soon. any moisture will be a good thing unfortunately we have to wait for another, perhaps 6-8 before we even start looking at that so we have another critical stretch here to get through. so does this mean a mandatory water restriction is on it's way? we asked the water authority which is looking at two important factors. one - the weather pattern we've been seeing and two how high our water usage is. we checked and according to the water authority we are using 763 million gallons more than we should be for this time of year. if this trend continues, at the may board meeting, we'll at least be discussing how to address this - whether that means mandatory restrictions or increased awareness. i just water it once, 6 o'clock in the morning - three days a week. it's not a good prospect for craig mansfield. if they go mandatory restrictions on watering, i think my grass would just totally die and maybe i'll have to look at doing rockscapes or something like that. a possible reality coming very soon. you would be wise to get out there this weekend and make sure your sprinkler heads are spraying on to your vegetation - not on to your street and that your using the "water by the numbers" program which means just twice a week right now. the last time we had a mandatory water restriction was back in 2006 when you could only water your lawn on designated days - and the fine for wasting water doubled