Kerrville TX Water Restrictions 2026

Current water restrictions in Kerrville, Texas

Kerrville is under Stage 2 water restrictions as of mid-July 2026, which limits sprinkler and automatic irrigation to two designated days per week. If that sounds mild for a Hill Country town that spent most of the last three years in some form of drought emergency, it is worth understanding how Kerrville got here — because the path ran through both the worst drought stages in the city's Water Management Plan and two catastrophic floods.

Some restriction trackers still list Kerrville at Stage 3. That was accurate for more than a year: the city moved from Stage 2 to Stage 3 at 12:01 a.m. on May 30, 2024, citing severe drought and significant declines in Guadalupe River flows into Nimitz Lake, the small impoundment where the city's treatment plant draws its water. Kerrville was still holding at Stage 3 in May 2025, when utility officials warned that lawn and landscape irrigation was eating up to 35 percent of the city's total drinking water. Then the July 4, 2025 flood tore down the Guadalupe, killed more than 100 people in Kerr County, and buried the treatment plant's river intake in debris. City Manager Dalton Rice declared a water supply emergency on July 28, 2025, pushing the city into Stage 4. Once crews restored the plant to full operation, the city stepped all the way down to Stage 2, effective 12:01 a.m. on August 21, 2025 — and it has held there since, through a dry spring and an April 2026 push urging residents to check their irrigation systems before summer.

The situation on the ground in mid-July 2026 is anything but calm, though. On July 16, Mayor Joe Herring Jr. issued a local disaster declaration as flash flooding again swept the Kerrville area, with the Guadalupe rising 16 feet in about 30 minutes at some gauges and residents ordered to shelter in place. Whatever that flood does to river flows in the weeks ahead, the standing lawn-watering rules remain Stage 2 until the city formally changes stages — and as 2025 proved, a flood can just as easily tighten restrictions as loosen them. Neighboring Hill Country towns like Boerne are navigating the same whiplash, and you can compare rules across the state on our Texas water restrictions page.

Watering schedule and allowed days

Stage 2 of Kerrville's Water Management Plan splits the week by street address and confines sprinklers to the coolest hours of the day:

• Odd-numbered addresses: Tuesdays and Saturdays
• Even-numbered addresses: Wednesdays and Sundays
• Sprinkler hours: 6:00–9:00 a.m. and 8:00–10:00 p.m. on your designated days, for automatic irrigation systems, hose-end sprinklers, and soaker hoses
• Hand watering and drip: allowed every day between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m., using a hand-held hose with a shut-off nozzle, a drip irrigation system, or a bucket or watering can of five gallons or less

The daily hand-watering and drip window is the workhorse exemption here. A new tree, a vegetable bed, or a stressed shade planting can legally get water seven days a week, as long as it happens overnight or early in the morning and the water is applied by hand or through drip emitters rather than thrown into the air by a sprinkler head.

Two other Kerrville-specific wrinkles matter. First, the city's reuse-water customers — three area golf courses, the Sports Complex, and the athletic fields at Tivy High School and Schreiner University — are not bound by the potable-water schedule, because they irrigate with non-potable water stored in the city's reuse pond. If you see the fairways green on an off day, that is treated effluent, not drinking water. Second, contractors on temporary fire hydrant meters are capped by stage: 25,000 gallons per day at Stage 1, 20,000 at Stage 2, 15,000 at Stage 3, 10,000 at Stage 4, and zero at Stage 5, when no hydrant meters are issued at all.

What happens if you violate restrictions in Kerrville?

Kerrville's watering rules are codified in Chapter 110, Article III of the city code, and the enforcement language is unusually broad on the dollar figure: failure to comply with the conservation measures in effect is a code violation that, upon conviction, carries a fine of not less than $50 and not more than $2,000 per offense, plus court costs. Each day and each incident can count as a separate offense, and the city's posted notices add a second layer of leverage — repeated violations may result in disconnection of water service.

In practice, Kerrville has led with education rather than citations. The utility's messaging through the 2024–2025 drought emphasized leak checks, sprinkler-head alignment, and matching irrigation timers to the current schedule, and officials said in May 2025 that the city would step up enforcement by actively monitoring water usage as conditions worsened. The assistant director of utilities, Chris Clark, framed conservation as a shared responsibility during that stretch — the message was cooperation first, court dates second.

Suspected violations — a system running at 2 p.m., a broken head flooding a gutter for days — can be reported to Kerrville Public Works at (830) 258-1221, or through the city's general line at (830) 257-8000. The city posts the current stage, the full schedule, and the Water Management Plan at kerrvilletx.gov.

Water source and infrastructure

Kerrville sits near the top of the Guadalupe River basin, which makes its supply story unlike almost any other Texas city's. There is no big reservoir upstream to lean on, because there is barely any "upstream" left — the river's spring-fed headwaters rise in western Kerr County, and by the time the Guadalupe reaches Kerrville it is still a modest Hill Country stream. The city diverts river water at Nimitz Lake, a small dam pool on the edge of town, treats it at its surface water treatment plant, and supplements that with wells. When drought cuts the river's flow, there is no upstream release to call for. When a flood comes, as it did in July 2025, the same intake can be knocked out by debris in a single night.

That vulnerability is exactly why Kerrville built the piece of infrastructure it is best known for in water circles: aquifer storage and recovery. Kerrville's ASR system came online in 1998 — the first of its kind in Texas — after feasibility work for the Upper Guadalupe River Authority in the early 1990s and roughly three years of litigation, including opposition from whitewater paddling interests who objected to diverting water from the Guadalupe even during high flows. The concept is simple and a little audacious: when the river runs high, the city treats more water than it needs and injects the surplus down wells into the Hosston-Sligo formation of the Lower Trinity Aquifer, roughly 485 to 620 feet down. The water sits in the rock, safe from the evaporation that steals several feet a year off Texas surface reservoirs, until a drought or an emergency, when the same wells pump it back up. The city's ASR wells can recover about 2.6 million gallons per day combined, including a downtown well rated at 1 million gallons per day.

It is the same bet San Antonio later made at a vastly larger scale with its Carrizo aquifer storage bank, and Kerrville made it a quarter century earlier with a fraction of the budget. For a headwaters town, banking wet-year water underground is not a luxury — it is the only storage that does not evaporate and cannot be washed away.

Flood and drought in the same river valley

Kerrville's defining water problem is that it lives at both extremes, sometimes in the same month. The town sits in what hydrologists call Flash Flood Alley, where thin soils over limestone shed heavy rain almost instantly into the river — and shed it away, downstream, before much of it can soak in and become supply. That is why the July 4, 2025 flood, one of the deadliest in Texas history, did not end Kerrville's drought restrictions; it tightened them, by wrecking the treatment plant intake and forcing the Stage 4 water supply emergency. A river can rise 20 feet and leave the aquifers underneath barely moved.

The pattern repeated almost exactly a year later. On July 16, 2026, flash flood emergencies went up for Kerr County as the Guadalupe surged again, Mayor Herring declared a local disaster activating emergency measures for up to seven days, and Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration covering dozens of Texas counties. For residents, the practical takeaway is counterintuitive but important: a flooded river does not mean the watering rules are over. Stage changes in Kerrville follow the Water Management Plan's supply triggers — river flow, well levels, system capacity, and demand — not the evening news. The city evaluates those factors and announces stage moves with effective dates, the way it did on May 30, 2024 and August 21, 2025. Until an announcement comes, the Stage 2 schedule stands, and the smart assumption in this valley is that the next dry stretch is already on its way.

Brown lawn protections in Texas

Texas gives homeowners real, if incomplete, protection against turf-obsessed homeowners associations. Under Texas Property Code Section 202.007, an HOA cannot enforce deed restrictions that prohibit drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf, and it cannot ban rainwater harvesting systems or require a resident to keep a landscape that defies state water policy. An association may require you to submit a xeriscape or turf-conversion plan for approval, but it cannot unreasonably deny one. If you want to replace thirsty St. Augustine with buffalograss or a native bed, your HOA can shape the design — it cannot veto the concept.

What Texas law does not contain is an explicit "brown lawn" statute — there is no provision that flatly bars an HOA from citing a dormant, drought-stressed lawn. But in Kerrville the practical defense is strong: a lawn watered in full compliance with the city's Stage 2 schedule will go partially dormant in a Hill Country summer, and an HOA demanding irrigation beyond two sprinkler days a week is demanding that you violate Chapter 110 of the city code, a prosecutable offense. Keep records — photos, watering logs, a copy of the current city notice — and put the conflict in writing. Associations back down quickly when the alternative is arguing that a municipal ordinance should lose to a lawn covenant.

Lawn care during restrictions

The grasses that thrive in Kerrville are the ones built for the Edwards Plateau: shallow rocky soils, brutal July sun, and rain that arrives in feast-or-famine pulses. On two sprinkler days a week, all three of the region's standards can survive — the difference is how much water they want and how gracefully they go dormant.

Whatever you grow, water deep and rarely rather than shallow and often. One good soaking — roughly an inch — on a designated day beats two light sprinkles, because it pushes roots down into the soil profile instead of teaching them to loiter at the surface. Kerrville's soils are thin over caliche and limestone, so run your zones in two or three short cycles with a soak-in break between them; a single long run will sheet off the rock and down the curb, which wastes water and invites a code complaint. Raise your mower to three inches or higher so the blades shade the crowns, leave clippings to mulch, and skip fertilizer in high summer — pushing growth you cannot legally water is how lawns die in a drought.

Above all, let dormancy work. Bermuda and buffalograss evolved to go brown in a Hill Country summer and green back up with fall rain. A tan lawn in August is not a dead lawn; it is a native survival strategy that happens to be free. Spend your two watering days on trees and foundation plantings — the assets that actually take years to replace — and use the daily 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. hand-watering window for anything that needs triage.

Common questions about Kerrville water restrictions

What water restriction stage is Kerrville in right now?

Stage 2 of the city's Water Management Plan, as of mid-July 2026. Kerrville spent May 2024 to July 2025 at Stage 3, briefly hit Stage 4 during the water supply emergency after the July 2025 flood, and stepped down to Stage 2 on August 21, 2025. Some third-party trackers still show the old Stage 3 status; the city's own site is the authority.

What days can I run sprinklers in Kerrville?

Odd-numbered addresses water on Tuesdays and Saturdays, even-numbered addresses on Wednesdays and Sundays, and only from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. or 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. That covers automatic systems, hose-end sprinklers, and soaker hoses.

Can I hand-water or use drip irrigation every day?

Yes. A hand-held hose with a shut-off nozzle, a drip system, or a bucket of five gallons or less may be used any day of the week between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.

What is the fine for violating watering rules?

Under Chapter 110, Article III of the Kerrville city code, a conviction carries a fine of $50 to $2,000 per offense plus court costs, and the city warns that repeat violations can lead to disconnection of water service. Enforcement historically starts with education and warnings.

Did the July 2026 flood end the restrictions?

No. The July 16, 2026 flash flood triggered a local disaster declaration, but flood runoff races downstream off the Hill Country's thin soils rather than refilling supply — and the 2025 flood actually forced tighter restrictions by damaging the treatment plant intake. Stage changes only happen when the city formally announces them based on river flow, well levels, and system capacity.

Do the rules apply to private wells?

The city's Water Management Plan governs City of Kerrville water customers. Private wells in Kerr County fall under the Headwaters Groundwater Conservation District, which manages the aquifer separately — but well owners draw from the same stressed Trinity formations and are urged to follow the same conservation practices.

What is aquifer storage and recovery, and why does Kerrville have it?

ASR lets the city inject treated Guadalupe River water into the Lower Trinity Aquifer during wet periods and pump it back out during droughts and emergencies. Kerrville's system, online since 1998, was the first in Texas, and its wells can recover about 2.6 million gallons per day — underground storage that cannot evaporate and cannot be knocked out by a flood.

What days can I water my lawn in Kerrville?

Odd addresses Tue/Sat, even Wed/Sun (sprinklers); hand watering and drip allowed daily Hand watering with a shut-off nozzle is typically allowed any day during permitted hours.

What time can I water in Kerrville?

Watering is allowed 6:00–9:00 a.m. and 8:00–10:00 p.m. (sprinklers); hand watering/drip daily 7:00 p.m.–9:00 a.m.. Watering outside these hours is a violation even on your assigned day.

When will water restrictions end in Kerrville?

Current Stage 2 Water Restrictions — City of Kerrville Water Management Plan restrictions are in effect through Until Water Management Plan supply triggers ease. Monitor https://www.kerrvilletx.gov/512/Water-Restrictions for the latest status.

How do I report a water waste violation in Kerrville?

Contact City of Kerrville Public Works — Water at (830) 258-1221 or visit https://www.kerrvilletx.gov/512/Water-Restrictions. Most utilities accept online reports and respond within 48 hours.