. If your address ends in an odd number, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, water your lawns, flowers and vegetables on calendar days ending in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. If your address ends with an even number, 2, 4, 6, 8, 0, water on calendar days ending in 2, 4, 6, 8, 0. Daily watering of freshly laid sod is fine. Discontinue hosing down driveways. Wash your car on the calendar day reserved for your address, but use a bucket instead of a constantly running hose. It's OK to rinse the car clean with a hose. Shut off decorative fountains that do not recycle water. Fountains such as the one at Heartland of America Park use recycled water and do not need to be shut down. Refrain from filling large private swimming pools. Filling backyard pools for toddlers is fine. Cities that buy water from M.U.D. are asked to curtail sewer flushing, lake filling, firefighting drills, street washing and other nonessential uses of water. M.U.D. serves 175,000 customers in Omaha, Bellevue, Bennington, Elkhorn, Ralston, La Vista, Carter Lake, Waterloo and Fort Calhoun. In Papillion, residents should refrain from lawn-watering this weekend. Watering is also banned from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and anytime on Mondays. Otherwise, Papillion residents should follow this watering schedule: Even-numbered addresses should water Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; odd-numbered addresses on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

7.02.02 Grin and conserve it Omaha World-Herald editorial Omaha-area residents are living in what may be the worst of all worlds regarding water: very hot, very dry weather and increasing demands for a limited supply of the precious resource. The supply problem likely will persist. The city's proposed new water treatment plant, the Platte West facility, is at least five years from completion, and existing plants can't keep up. Omahans will have to wait - wait and hope that nothing interferes with approvals and construction of the new plant. Water demand is high, in communities such as Papillion, which has its own water system, as well as in the M.U.D. service area. People are trying to save their lawns, shrubs, trees and plants from the drought as well as trying to escape the heat in pools of various sizes. Metropolitan Utilities District officials have asked for voluntary conservation measures, including such actions as alternate-day outdoor watering and car-washing with a bucket rather than a running hose. Most people can understand the need for these restrictions and will, we believe, readily comply. Even if the utility should have to move to a more serious water alert, which would make conservation mandatory, the constraints are not that severe. What may be painful to some M.U.D. customers, however, is the sight of others wasting water. Specifically, businesses and people with automatic sprinkling systems wasting water. These systems can be efficient and effective, sending water where it's needed most without undue waste. But damaged, obstructed or improperly aimed sprinkler heads can send fountains of water spraying not only over lawn and flower but also over sidewalk and street. Systems that pump too much water or are left on too long can spawn rivers that flow across sidewalks, into gutters and, ultimately, into the storm sewers. Both problems cause senseless waste. Omahans are in this together, and for the long haul. Cooperation and cheerful compliance will go a long way toward making the restrictions more bearable. Click here for water conservation tips.

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