Water is a necessary component of human life. However, Texas is facing a water shortage as the demand grows and rainfall decreases with rising temperatures. With Prosper’s rapidly growing population from 15,970 people in 2015 to 42,598 people in 2024, local government officials are tackling water conservation with watering guidelines, free resources and education. 

As the Water Conservation Coordinator, Lauren Kraus’ job is to educate both adults and children on this topic. In the town’s annual Celebrate Prosper event on Oct. 4, she set up an interactive booth where children picked up litter from a kiddie pool representing Lake Lewisville, where the town sources most of its drinking water from. 

“Hopefully the kids are going to take away with them (how to) to take some of the trash out of our waterways so it’s cleaner,” Kraus said. “I like to come up with activities like this that educate the public about what they can do to help clean our waterways or conserve water.”

Kraus outlines the specific process on how the water from Lake Lewisville is treated to be drinkable. From there, the town purchases the treated water from the North Texas Municipal Water District and stores it in ground storage tanks.

“[The water] comes from the lake and then it goes into the treatment facility where they clean it,” Kraus said. “And then it will get pumped into the laboratory where they make sure it’s safe for everybody to drink. And then it gets piped into our holding facilities, which are like our water towers, and then it gets over to you guys at your house.”

While the town’s drinking water is sourced from lakes, the parks run off wells so the municipal water supply is not interrupted. This well water is used towards watering the clay soil on the vast number of athletic fields.

“We’re getting our water from an aquifer way down low [in Frontier Park] and then the parks are graded for the water to run off to basically come back to a pond where we pump from,” Parks and Recreation Director Dan Baker said. “So when we water this park, we’re not lowering the water that’s in the water towers—the same water that you guys get when you brush your teeth or want a glass of water or take a shower. We’re not competing with you for that water.”

In an effort to also educate adults about water preservation, the town collaborated with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service to teach a workshop on rainwater harvesting with rain barrels on Oct. 6.                                                                     

“A rain barrel is an easy way that a household can capture at least a little bit of water (to) water their pots or water their raised bed or something like that,” County Extension Agent for Horticulture Brad Voss said. “Rainwater harvesting is a way that we can stretch water resources and take a little bit of demand off of our water system.”

This workshop shared educational brochures about water usage guidelines as one of the primary ways water is wasted is through excessive watering and sprinkler use. Because of Texas’ unique water situation, from April 1 to Oct. 31, residents are allowed to only water their plants and grass twice a week based on their designated watering days according to what zone they live in.

“Texas is unique in the fact that we only have one natural lake,” Voss said. “So, when you look around the state and you see all the different bodies of water, we built those over many, many decades. That process takes a very, very, very long time. It takes a lot of people working together. We’ve had to manufacture almost all of our surface water.”

Additionally, Prosper partners with the WaterMyYard program provided by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service to give the public free weekly watering advice to help adhere to guidelines. 

“Water conservation is a major part of my program plans here in Collin County,” Voss said. “It’s also a major component of the program across North Texas because the demand for water is only increasing as we get more and more people moving (here). Every one of those folks needs a house, every one of those houses is going to come with bathrooms and sinks and they’re also going to come with yards and trees and landscapes and things like that.”

This article was edited by Emily Logan, Yousuf Ali and Kate Duncan.