Wasting Water

My parents kindly offered to let us have their above ground pool that they bought 3 years ago and never set up. Since we now have a yard big enough for it we gladly accepted. This past weekend Justin leveled the ground area we thought was a big for the base of the pool and Saturday night we began to fill the pool. Well the base ended up being a little bigger than we had thought and part of the pool ended up on un-level ground and the pool began to tilt down hill. You can see in the picture. Each day it got worse and was starting to break the filter system. Justin knew Monday that we were probably going to have to drain the entire pool level more ground and then refill the pool again. I was sick to my stomach because there has to be well over 2000 gallons of fresh water in this pool and now we are going to dump it out and waste all of that water! I went to bed just thinking about how we are in such a bad drought and here we are wasting so much water. So yesterday a lot of you got a strange phone call from me offering to wash your car for free or come fill up your water storage. After several hours of washing cars for neighbors and friends I knocked on the door of one of my neighbors who told me that if I just drained the pool into my sewer clean-out port the water would be able to be reused by the city and I possibly wouldn't be charged for the water. I was so happy to hear I had a way to get all that water to a location where it could be used again! I went home and looked up where my sewer clean-out port was and was directed to Las Vegas Water district page on guide lines for draining pools. I had talked to the water district that morning and they hadn't mentioned that the water would be reused or that I wouldn't be charged (not so sure about the no charge thing still) but for all of you out there with above ground pools it is actually a violation of city ordinances to drain your pool into the street. You are suppose to drain it into the sewer clean-out port. What is that and where is it? Its those black caped off tubes in your front yard landscape with metal tightening strap (at least in my yard that's where it is). So I was feeling pretty good. Yeah the water won't be wasted! I had to stop my bucket bregade anyways because I had to get ready for a meeting I was going to. I figured the pool would be ok until the next morning. Umm, look what I woke up to this morning! The pool had tipped to far last night and just started spilling out the side. My back yard is completely flooded and sadly almost all the water was wasted. A lot was still in our yard so I went and opened my sewer clean-out port and start pouring buckets of water down the drain. I did that for about 2 hours this morning but I still feel awful because I know that I hardly got any of the water back into the system. I guess at least I was able to do some service yesterday but I really wish I had been able to save more water. Alexis took pictures of me and my attempt to get as much water out of the yard as possible. I'm smiling in the last picture but I wasn't happy about what happened. I am pooped! Now I know what to do next time we have to drain the pool and hopefully so will some of you if you set up and above ground pool.