Water your lawn on a Tuesday in Alamo Heights and you might assume you are following the same rules as everyone else in San Antonio. You are not. The city moved to Stage 2 water restrictions on August 10, 2026, just days after the broader San Antonio Water System had confirmed its own Stage 2 on August 5, and the coincidence in timing hides how differently the two declarations actually get triggered. One city has options when the aquifer gets tight. The other doesn't.
That difference is not a footnote. It is the reason Alamo Heights has spent the last three Augusts climbing past Stage 2 into Stage 3 and Stage 4, and it is worth understanding before you plan your fall landscaping or your next pool party.
The Well Beneath Your Water Bill
Most of San Antonio gets its water from SAWS, a utility that blends supply from the Edwards Aquifer along with the Carrizo and Wilcox aquifers and surface water pulled from sources like Lake Dunlap. When one source runs low, SAWS has others to lean on before it has to tighten the tap.
Alamo Heights does not have that luxury. The city runs its own water utility off four city wells, and its own water conservation page states plainly that the Edwards Aquifer is the city's sole source of water. There is no blend, no backup surface reservoir, no second aquifer to draw down when the first one gets tight. The city's own drought surcharge FAQ spells out the consequence directly: because Alamo Heights has a standing agreement with the Edwards Aquifer Authority, it is required to declare a Critical Drought Stage the moment aquifer conditions call for it, while a utility like SAWS, with other sources to draw from, may hold at a lower stage longer.
That is the whole mechanism in one sentence. Your neighbor on a SAWS account and your own Alamo Heights account can be reading two different water reports even though you are both filling a glass from the same regional aquifer.
What Stage 2 Actually Restricts This Week
As of this week, here is what governs an Alamo Heights address under Stage 2.
Automatic and manual irrigation systems run once a week, before 10 a.m. or after 8 p.m., on the day tied to the last digit of your address:
| Last digit of address | Watering day |
|---|---|
| 0 or 1 | Monday |
| 2 or 3 | Tuesday |
| 4 or 5 | Wednesday |
| 6 or 7 | Thursday |
| 8 or 9 | Friday |
| Multi-family, schools, churches, commercial | Wednesday |
Outside your assigned day, drip irrigation, a soaker hose, a hand-held hose, or a five-gallon bucket are fair game any day, any time. A few other rules carry real teeth right now:
- Washing a vehicle at home is only allowed on your designated watering day.
- Charity car washes are prohibited unless the operator is a commercial car wash that recycles at least 75 percent of its water.
- Non-public pools need at least 25 percent of their surface covered with an evaporation screen when not in use. Inflatable pool toys are still fine.
- Restaurants can only serve water to a table on request.
- You cannot hose down a driveway, sidewalk, or parking lot unless it is a genuine health or safety issue.
None of this is punitive theater. It is the direct, contractual result of a small city with one water source trying to stretch it through a Texas summer.
The Fee Line Under The Surface
Since December 2023, Alamo Heights has also layered a Drought Surcharge Fee on top of the stage restrictions, adopted under city ordinance and effective February 1, 2024. The fee kicks in whenever the city has declared any Critical Drought Stage, from Stage 1 through Stage 5, and a customer's monthly usage crosses a threshold set for their account type.
The city's own example, drawn from a Stage 3 scenario, shows how it works: a residential customer who used 3,000 cubic feet in a month against a 2,500 cubic-foot threshold would pay the surcharge rate on the extra 500 cubic feet, landing at a modest $6.25 for that billing cycle. The rate scales up as the stage climbs, so the same overage costs more in Stage 4 than it does today in Stage 2. It is not a fee designed to punish a single hot week of watering. It is designed to make the cost of ignoring the stage rise right alongside the aquifer's decline.
Four Summers, One Pattern
Here is the part that should change how you think about today's Stage 2 notice. Look at how the last three summers actually played out in Alamo Heights.
| Year | First stage escalation | Peak stage reached |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Stage 3 by July 3 | Stage 4 by July 24 |
| 2024 | Stage 3 by April 11 | Stage 4 by June 11, back to Stage 3 by July 30, Stage 4 again by August 27 |
| 2025 | Stage 3 by August 4 | Stage 4 by August 12, just eight days later |
| 2026 | Stage 1 on July 31 | Stage 2 on August 10 |
In three of the last three years on record, Alamo Heights was already sitting at Stage 3 or higher by the time August arrived. This year the city is running noticeably behind that pattern, only reaching Stage 2 in mid-August rather than Stage 3 or 4. That is genuinely good news for anyone hoping to keep their sprinkler running twice a week a little longer.
It is not, however, a reason to assume Stage 2 is where this ends. The city's own history shows escalation can move fast once it starts. In 2025, the jump from Stage 3 to Stage 4 took eight days. Nothing here predicts what happens next, but the pattern is worth watching if you are the kind of resident who plans a fall reseeding project or a pool refill around what the rules currently allow.
Keeping A Lawn Alive On One Watering Day
None of this changes what is actually growing in most Alamo Heights yards. The area's turf is typically Bermuda, zoysia, or St. Augustine, and each of those grasses is built to survive exactly this kind of stress if you water with intention rather than habit.
The trick in Bexar County's shallow, rocky soil is cycle and soak. Instead of running your one weekly cycle straight through, split it into two or three shorter runs so the water has time to sink in rather than run off toward the street, which is also a violation on its own. Mow a little higher through August to shade the root zone, and use your hand-held hose, which carries no day-of-week restriction, on the stressed patches and any newly planted trees between your assigned irrigation days. A lawn that browns a little and recovers in September is a better outcome than one that stayed green all summer and drew a surcharge in the mail.
What This Means For Your Week
If your address ends in a 4 or 5, your watering window opened again this Wednesday, before 10 a.m. or after 8 p.m., and it will again next Wednesday. If you are unsure which stage is active or want the current rules confirmed straight from the source rather than a neighbor's memory of last year, the city keeps its restrictions posted directly on its own site, along with the full drought surcharge explanation.
What is worth carrying with you past this week is the mechanism itself. Alamo Heights is a small city that chose to keep its own wells rather than fold entirely into the regional system, and that independence is exactly why its water calendar can run ahead of, behind, or right alongside the rest of San Antonio depending on what the Edwards Aquifer is doing in any given month. Understanding that is understanding one more thing about how this specific city, not the metro around it, actually runs.
If you are watching Alamo Heights closely for reasons that go beyond your sprinkler schedule, whether that is a future move, a home you are weighing for the long term, or just wanting a clearer read on how this city operates day to day, the team at Nichole Eckmann Property Group knows this neighborhood at that level of detail. Schedule Your Personalized Consultation when you are ready to talk through what living here actually involves.
