Cibolo TX Water Restrictions 2026

Current water restrictions in Cibolo, Texas

As of mid-July 2026, Cibolo is under Stage 4 drought restrictions — the tightest watering rules in Texas. Outdoor irrigation is limited to once every 14 days, on an assigned date determined by your address, and only during two narrow windows: 6 to 10 in the morning or 8 to 10 at night. The restriction comes down through the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation (SSLGC), the wholesale supplier whose Carrizo Aquifer pipeline feeds this stretch of the Interstate 35 corridor, and it puts Cibolo on the same every-other-week cadence as neighboring Schertz.

The trigger has been building for more than a year. The region's benchmark J-17 index well, the gauge that drought ladders across the corridor key off of, sat at 625.9 feet in April 2026 — below the 630-foot line that pushes suppliers into their most severe tier, and well under the 640-foot mark needed to step back down to Stage 3. Multiple dry winters in a row have kept recharge minimal, and utilities across the region have been ratcheting rather than relaxing.

Cibolo's situation carries an extra edge because of its arithmetic. This is a city of roughly 38,500 people that counted barely 3,000 residents in 2000. Nearly all of that growth arrived as single-family subdivisions with automatic irrigation systems, which means Cibolo's summer peak demand looks nothing like it did when the pipeline contracts serving it were drawn up. Stage 4 is what happens when a boomtown's demand curve meets a supply line that does not grow with the population.

The week of July 13 offered a bitter local irony: flash flooding on July 15 sent Cibolo Creek surging past 22 feet, forcing evacuations in low-lying areas upstream in Boerne and next door in Schertz, which declared a local disaster — even as lawns along the same creek sat under a 14-day watering leash. A creek that rises for an afternoon does almost nothing for a confined aquifer 40 miles east whose recharge is measured in years, and the drought stage did not move.

When can you water in Cibolo?

Under SSLGC Stage 4 as applied in Cibolo, the schedule works like this:

• Frequency: irrigation with sprinklers or automatic systems is allowed once every 14 days, on the date assigned to your address digit. Check the current calendar from the City of Cibolo or SSLGC before you water — the assignment cycles, and watering on an off date is a violation even if your neighbor's sprinklers are running.
• Hours: 6:00–10:00 a.m. or 8:00–10:00 p.m. on your assigned date only. Midday watering is prohibited outright.
• Sundays: Cibolo's standing utility rules bar sprinkler use on Sundays year-round, independent of the drought stage.

Those drought windows sit on top of the city's permanent conservation ordinance, which is worth knowing because it survives every stage change: from April 1 through October 31, irrigation systems may not run between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., and from November 1 through March 31 they may not run between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. In other words, even in a normal year Cibolo does not allow midday sprinkling; Stage 4 shrinks the calendar from every day to one day a fortnight.

Hand watering with a hose you hold, bucket watering, and drip irrigation of trees, foundation plantings, and vegetable gardens are treated far more leniently than sprinkler systems under the drought plan, but the details matter — before you assume an exemption covers you, confirm with Cibolo Utility Services at 210-658-9900. Watering a young tree with a soaker hose at dawn is a very different conversation with a code officer than running rotors at 2 p.m. on the wrong Tuesday.

Penalty schedule for water violations

Stage 4 enforcement in the SSLGC service area is not symbolic. In Cibolo, a first documented violation runs $500, a second climbs to $1,000, and a third reaches $2,000 — the maximum a Texas city can levy for a health-and-safety ordinance violation — with possible interruption of water service for customers who keep ignoring the rules. Each day a violation continues can be cited as a separate offense.

That ladder is steeper than what most Texas cities post, and it reflects the math of a fixed pipeline: when supply genuinely cannot be stretched, one household running an irrigation system daily consumes the allocation the plan assumes for several compliant homes. Code enforcement responds to complaints and also patrols; running sprinklers midday in a Stage 4 summer is conspicuous.

Violations are reported through the city's main line at 210-658-9900 during business hours. Reports typically need an address, a date and time, and what was observed. First contacts for marginal cases — a broken head gushing on the right day, a new-sod permit question — tend to get a door hanger and a conversation, but deliberate off-day irrigation goes straight to citation. If you have new landscaping under warranty, ask the city about a variance before the installer's watering instructions put you $500 in the hole.

Where Cibolo's water comes from

Cibolo's taps draw on a blend of wholesale supplies, and every strand of the blend is stressed at once. The headline source is Carrizo Aquifer groundwater delivered through the SSLGC pipeline — a system of a dozen wells in a Gonzales County well field roughly 40 miles east, pumping from the confined Carrizo-Wilcox formation and moving water west through a transmission main toward the I-35 corridor. SSLGC was chartered by the cities of Schertz and Seguin, which own it; Cibolo is a customer at the end of the line, buying capacity from a system it does not control. That distinction matters in a drought: when the corporation's board sets a stage, Cibolo enforces it.

The city also receives treated water from the Canyon Regional Water Authority, which delivers a mix drawn from the Guadalupe River and CRWA's own Carrizo well fields. And parts of the city limits — mostly newer annexation areas on the edges — are served not by the city utility at all but by Green Valley Special Utility District, which runs its own drought ladder. Knowing whose meter is on your house is step one to knowing whose rules you follow.

Why is a groundwater-heavy portfolio in trouble? The Carrizo is a confined aquifer: reliable, high-quality, but slow to recharge and governed by pumping permits from the Gonzales County groundwater district. SSLGC has already expanded its well field once, growing permitted production from 12,500 to 20,000 acre-feet per year, and there is no cheap next increment — every additional acre-foot means new wells, new permits negotiated with landowners and the district, and more pipeline. Meanwhile the Guadalupe River side of the CRWA supply is squeezed by the same multi-year drought pressuring New Braunfels and every other river user downstream of Canyon Lake. When both the river and the aquifer permits are tight, the only lever left is demand — which is what Stage 4 is.

Ten times bigger in twenty-five years, on the same pipeline

Cibolo is the cleanest case study in Texas of growth outrunning water. The census counted about 3,000 people here in 2000, 15,349 in 2010, and 32,276 in 2020; current estimates put the city near 38,500 and still compounding at more than 3 percent a year. That is roughly a twelvefold increase in a quarter century — for years Cibolo ranked among the fastest-growing small cities in the country.

Almost none of that growth came as apartments or dense infill. It came as production-builder subdivisions off FM 1103 and Cibolo Valley Drive: four-bedroom houses on irrigated St. Augustine and Bermuda lots, each closing with a builder-installed sprinkler system plumbed to run three times a week. Multiply a few hundred gallons per irrigation cycle by ten thousand new rooftops and you get the shape of the problem — summer peak demand in Cibolo is overwhelmingly discretionary outdoor use, which is why the drought plan attacks lawns first and hardest.

The supply side did not compound at 3 percent a year. Pipeline capacity, well permits, and treatment contracts were negotiated in fixed increments years ago, and the next increments are slower and costlier each round. Schertz and Seguin, as SSLGC's owners, sit at the front of the queue for the corporation's water; Cibolo, as the customer city, plans around what it can contract for. City council agendas in recent years have circled the same theme — impact fees, conservation-oriented landscape rules for new construction, and the uncomfortable question of whether the growth machine can keep running at a 14-day watering cadence. Stage 4 is not just a weather event here. It is the bill for two decades of rooftops arriving faster than acre-feet.

Can your HOA fine you for a brown lawn?

Most of Cibolo's housing stock sits inside HOA-governed subdivisions, so this matters: Texas Water Code Section 202.007 forbids a property owners' association from enforcing landscaping rules in a way that prevents you from complying with official water restrictions. An HOA in Steele Creek Estates or Bentwood Ranch cannot fine you for a lawn that browned out because you watered only on your assigned SSLGC date. It also cannot prohibit drought-tolerant landscaping outright, ban rain barrels or other harvesting systems, or forbid water-conserving turf and drip irrigation.

What an HOA can still do is require you to submit a landscaping plan for approval before you rip out grass, and it can insist the yard be maintained — dormant is protected, dead-and-abandoned is not, and weeds taken over a bare lot remain fair game for a violation letter. The practical play: keep your lawn alive at dormancy level (see below), photograph it if you get a notice, and cite Section 202.007 in writing if a board pushes back. Boards in this corridor have mostly gotten the message after several drought summers; the statute settles the argument when they haven't.

How to manage your lawn during drought

A 14-day watering interval will not keep a lawn green in a Cibolo July, and it is not meant to. The goal is survival — carrying warm-season grass through drought dormancy so it greens up when the rules relax. The good news is that the grasses that dominate this corridor are built for exactly that.

How to spend your one watering every two weeks: water deep and once, not briefly and hopefully. Run each zone long enough to put down roughly an inch — use a tuna can to time it — in the early-morning window when evaporation is lowest. Deep, infrequent soaking pushes roots down; a light sprinkle on the surface trains them up and wastes your only turn. Between waterings, mow high (3.5 to 4 inches for St. Augustine, the top of the range for everything), keep the blade sharp, stay off the grass in the afternoon heat, and skip fertilizer entirely — feeding a drought-stressed lawn forces growth it cannot support. Hand watering, where allowed, is best reserved for trees and foundation beds: a mature shade tree is worth more than any lawn and takes years to replace, and Cibolo's clay soils will pull away from slab foundations in a dry summer, so a slow soaker line around the foundation is money well spent. If sections of St. Augustine die outright, treat it as an opportunity — the replacement sod market across the San Antonio metro has shifted heavily toward Bermuda, zoysia, and native plantings for exactly this reason.

Questions residents are asking

Can I water my lawn today in Cibolo?

Only if today is your assigned date on the once-every-14-days Stage 4 calendar, and only from 6 to 10 a.m. or 8 to 10 p.m. Assignments run by address digit and the cycle rotates, so check the current City of Cibolo or SSLGC schedule rather than assuming last month's date pattern still holds. Sprinkler use is barred on Sundays regardless of stage.

Is hand watering allowed under Stage 4?

Hand-held hose, bucket, and drip watering of trees, gardens, and foundations are treated far more leniently than sprinkler irrigation, but confirm the current allowances with Cibolo Utility Services at 210-658-9900 before relying on an exemption. Whatever is allowed, do it in the cool hours — that is both the rule's intent and the only time it does the plant much good.

What is the fine for watering on the wrong day?

A first documented violation is $500, a second $1,000, and a third $2,000 with possible interruption of water service. Each day a violation continues can be cited separately. That is among the steepest residential enforcement ladders in Texas, matching the severity of the stage.

Why is Cibolo stricter than San Antonio or Seguin right now?

Different suppliers, different ladders. San Antonio's SAWS and Seguin's blended supply follow their own drought plans, while Cibolo enforces the stage declared by SSLGC, whose fixed Carrizo pipeline capacity leaves less slack when demand peaks. A city on the customer end of a wholesale pipeline restricts to what the pipeline can deliver, not to what the map next door allows. Statewide context is on our Texas water restrictions page.

When will Stage 4 end in Cibolo?

There is no announced end date. The regional benchmark J-17 well must recover above the 630-foot Stage 4 threshold — and hold there — before suppliers step back to Stage 3, and it sat at 625.9 feet as recently as April 2026. Absent a genuinely wet fall and winter, expect the 14-day cadence to persist through the 2026 irrigation season.

Can my HOA fine me for a brown lawn during the restrictions?

No. Texas Water Code Section 202.007 bars associations from enforcing rules that prevent compliance with official water restrictions, and it protects drought-tolerant landscaping and rain harvesting as well. Keep the lawn alive and maintained — a dormant lawn is protected, an abandoned one is not.

I'm on a Green Valley SUD meter inside Cibolo city limits. Do these rules apply to me?

Green Valley Special Utility District sets its own drought stages for its certificated area, which covers parts of Cibolo's edges. GVSUD customers should follow GVSUD's posted stage and schedule, which may differ from the city's. Your water bill tells you whose rules you live under.

What days can I water my lawn in Cibolo?

Once every 14 days by address digit — check City of Cibolo/SSLGC calendar; no sprinklers on Sundays Hand watering with a shut-off nozzle is typically allowed any day during permitted hours.

What time can I water in Cibolo?

Watering is allowed 6:00–10:00 a.m. or 8:00–10:00 p.m. on assigned date. Watering outside these hours is a violation even on your assigned day.

When will water restrictions end in Cibolo?

Current SSLGC Stage 4 Drought Restrictions — Once Every 14 Days restrictions are in effect through Until aquifer recovery — no announced end date. Monitor https://www.cibolotx.gov/services/utility_services/water_information.php for the latest status.

How do I report a water waste violation in Cibolo?

Contact City of Cibolo Utility Services at 210-658-9900 or visit https://www.cibolotx.gov/services/utility_services/water_information.php. Most utilities accept online reports and respond within 48 hours.