HOUSTON — Lance Armstrong is one of the favorite sons of Texas and a model citizen known as much for his social conscience as his cycling. So it came as a surprise when it was revealed this week that he is one of the biggest individual users of water in Austin, where he lives. Say it ain’t so, Lance. In July, Mr. Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times, used a whopping 330,000 gallons of water at his lush Spanish-colonial home, with an acre of gardens and a swimming pool, city water authority officials said. This tremendous flow of H2O, which is 38 times what the average household in the city uses in the summer, comes as Texas is going through a dry spell and officials are asking people to cut back on watering their lawns. “We are definitely short on rain,” Lisa Rhodes, a spokeswoman for the authority, said with a sigh. Mr. Armstrong declined to be interviewed. He has been in Colorado and California all summer and only noticed the surge in water use when he saw his bills go up, his spokesman, Mark Higgins, said in an e-mail message. (The bill for July was $2,460.) “Lance and all the folks involved are looking into it and will for sure get it under control,” Mr. Higgins wrote. The Austin American-Statesman, which broke the story on Friday, quoted Mr. Armstrong as saying he was unaware his water use was so high. “I’m a little shocked,” he told The Statesman. “There’s no justification for that much water.” He added, “I need to fix this.” But city water records suggested that his home has long been a guzzler of water, using an average of 158,000 gallons a month since January 2007. Then, in June, the cyclist shot ahead of the pack, topping the city’s list of residential water users for the first time, officials said. That month his house and garden drank up 222,900 gallons. Daryl Slusher, an assistant director of the Austin City Water Authority in charge of conservation, said the city had ruled out a leak. Mr. Slusher offered to scrutinize Mr. Armstrong’s irrigation system and perhaps recommend native species that require less water. Getting Mr. Armstrong on board with water conservation would be a public-relations boon, Mr. Slusher said, although it was a disappointment that Mr. Armstrong had ended up on the top of the city’s water-gluttons list. “I was surprised he was No. 1,” Mr. Slusher said. “But his response is very encouraging.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/u...gin&adxnnlx=1218918294-4m8MFHw+WJ78GdDmJANcdQ
I know some people with big houses here in Austin and they complain that their bill is $300/month. Dakota what's your bill? Lance has to feed to his lawn and plants and keep it nice looking for all the hot celebrity babes he brings back!
it's not as bad as him damming (sp?) the creek by the swimming hole and clouding up the water, he ended up losing that lawsuit. if you read the statesman article about the top 10 users the interesting person was #2. Some lawyer lady who has a .3 acre yard with NO sprinkler system and NO pool and she was using 144k a month. the city had repeatedly told her to slow down and that it wasn't a broken pipe. And she says she is normally travelling. Curious as to whats going on there.
I don't know if Lance realized how much water he'd been using, since he has "people" paying his bills and was out of town a huge chunk of the summer, but I'll predict something... within a year, Armstrong will have dramatically reduced his water consumption and will have the latest gizmos to be "water use friendly." This is a pretty big story in Austin and major watercooler talk. Lance knows he's looking bad here, so he'll do something about it. Because he knows it's right, or for his image? Doesn't matter. Armstrong will fix it.
I haven't met him and don't claim to have any particular insight. But he comes across as a self-centered complete jerk to me. Just my opinion.
What is the big deal? It just evaporates, goes into the air as moisture and comes back down again as rain. DD
Uh, because it takes time and resources to process the water. And just because it evaporates doesn't mean it's going to end up raining that stuff back down where it is most needed.
And he left his wife, the one who was there for him and took care of him while he had cancer. He's now dating Kate Hudson? This guy is a jerk.
The guy is a jerk but let gets some facts straight. He met his ex-wife while he was recovering so she didn't really take care of him. I have also heard from people in his circle that she cheated on him with a good friend of theirs. However this happened after he had cheated on her while he was training in France. Also, who wouldn't date Kate Hudson. She is way hot.
