Rzav Water Restrictions: What's Banned in Five Towns
Watering, street washing and car washing are banned in Cacak. See the water schedule in Arilje's villages, and why Gornji Milanovac cuts supply for 12 hours at a stretch.
Can you water your garden with tap water in Cacak? No, you cannot. The City Council introduced water restrictions on August 10 because of the low water level of the Rzav river, and the ban stays in place until the Rzav water supply system stabilizes.
Five towns drink from that same source: Cacak, Gornji Milanovac, Lucani, Arilje and Pozega. So this is not a local story about one municipality, it covers the entire Moravica District.
What exactly is banned in Cacak
The City Council’s decision bans the use of tap water for:
- watering parks
- watering gardens and yards
- watering agricultural crops and plantings
- washing streets
- washing vehicles
Compliance is monitored by JKP Vodovod Cacak, the local water utility, together with communal inspectors and communal police. Fines are issued under the city’s decision on public water supply and sewage, so this is not a request, it is a measure that gets enforced.
Similar bans on non essential water use were introduced earlier in Gornji Milanovac, Lucani and Pozega.
In Arilje’s villages, water runs on a schedule
In seven villages near Arilje, the restriction goes a step further and affects drinking water itself, not just watering.
In Bogojevici and Latvica, water flows from 6 to 9 a.m. and from 8 to 10 p.m. In the villages of Virovo, Lopasi, Donja Kravarica, Grdovici and Vrane, tap water is cut off from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Practical advice for households in those villages: run the washing machine and dishwasher, and fill canisters, during the hours when water is actually flowing, not whenever it happens to be convenient. The three hour morning window is the only stretch of the day when all of that can be fit in.
Why were restrictions introduced in the first place?
For two reasons, and neither one is simply drought. Ivan Lazic, director of JKP Vodovod Gornji Milanovac, explained where the shortage comes from.
Restrictions were introduced for two reasons. First, inflow has dropped from every direction, and second, because of irrational consumption.
A figure that puts this in context: the Rzav system produces 600 liters of water per second, and Gornji Milanovac’s share of that amount is 12 percent. When inflow drops, that percentage does not change, but the volume it represents shrinks.
That is why Gornji Milanovac cuts off water to consumers in 12 hour intervals. We wrote earlier about which group falls into which schedule in our story on that municipality’s restrictions, and the schedule has not changed since.
A burst pipe in Takovo cut pressure further
On August 12, a main pipeline burst in Takovo, near the local school. The break reduced water supply to Velerecki Greben and to parts of Ivovik, Crni Vrh and Brusnicki Greben. The water utility announced that repairs should be finished during the day.
That is also why the shutoff schedule in some settlements did not line up with the times that had been announced.
What you can do today
While the restrictions last, these are the steps that genuinely cut household consumption:
- fill bottles and canisters for drinking and cooking before the water stops
- shower instead of taking a bath, since a bath uses several times more water per use
- only run the washing machine when it is full, not with the drum half empty
- check the toilet tank and the faucets, a tap that drips nonstop is the most expensive leak in an apartment
- do not fill a pool or a tank from the water supply while the measure is in force
Watering a garden from your own well or from collected rainwater is not covered by the ban, since the measure applies only to water from the public supply.
The restrictions stay in force until the Rzav system returns to normal. Until then, the safest approach is for every household to keep a reserve for one day, not for one hour.
