The City of Tampa cut off reclaimed water service to every customer connected to the system Monday, leaving residents who rely on it for irrigation without a timeline for when it will come back online.
The city announced the shutdown in a statement posted to social media Monday morning, calling it a “service update” and apologizing for the inconvenience. Officials said they do not currently have an estimated restoration time and will provide updates as more information becomes available.
Reclaimed water, drawn from treated wastewater, is used by thousands of Tampa homeowners and businesses for lawn and landscape irrigation as a cheaper alternative to potable water. A citywide outage means those customers must either let their lawns go dry or temporarily switch to municipal drinking water for irrigation, a decision ratepayers may bear the cost of if the switch drives up water bills.
The city has not disclosed what caused the systemwide failure or how many customers are affected, and did not immediately provide additional details beyond the initial notice. Tampa 28 has reached out to the city for further comment.
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