LEWISBURG -- Leo Mendonca walked his dogs, Razzle and Dazzle down Market Street in Lewisburg. Mendonca lives in Lewisburg, and when Newswatch 16 told him Union County is now one of several under a drought warning, he said he already tries to conserve water.
"We try to do it all the time, my family. When we brush our teeth, we close the faucet, believe it or not," he commented.
Recently the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection expanded the drought warning to include eight counties, including Snyder and Union.
Snyder County has a rain deficit of eleven inches from normal this year. Officials are asking people in these counties to reduce water usage by 10 to 15 percent.
"Just conserve by using less water, don`t let the water run wherever possible. Whatever you can think that you don`t need to wash, don`t wash it," said Bob Creds of Union County.
DEP also recommends replacing older appliances with high-efficiency front loading models, something
Rick Thomas, the manager of Pizza Phi on Market Street in Lewisburg, took DEP's recommendation and recently replaced its ice machine.
"We moved to an electrically run and we saved about 20,000 gallons of water a month, which definitely helps trying to conserve the water," said Thomas.
Thomas added that it was hard for a restaurant to conserve water but they do the best they can.
"When we run the dishwasher we try to make sure it`s full to capacity instead of running partial loads."
Snyder and Union Counties join Monroe, Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton Counties in our area which are also under a drought warning.