The city of Tompkinsville is no longer under a water alert.

In a meeting on Sept. 17, the city commission voted to lower their status to a water advisory.

An advisory means using less water is only recommended versus an alert where the city can make it mandatory for everyone to conserve water .

The vote came after a city commissioner decided to find out for himself exactly how much water is left in the Tompkinsville City Lake.

Commissioner Richard Jackson says no one should be concerned about running out of water.

"I think people need to take a drive out to the lake and see how much water we really do have," Jackson said.

And that's what Commissioner Jackson did. He's a certified scuba diver and actually dove into the lake to take water measurements himself.

"With a camera and with precise equipment to take the measurements of the depth of water. This is so we can calculate how much water we have with a very educated guess," Jackson assured.

He said measurements have been taken recently, but weren't as accurate because they didn't know where the intake pipes were.

"There are plenty of water in our intakes. One is 12 feet under water and the other is 18 feet under water," Jackson said.

Based on those numbers, the district conservationist and the state district of water found Tompkinsville has about six months of water left.

"Going down to the second intake, my calculation is 160 to 170," said Bill Caldwell, Environmentalist Control Supervisor from the Ky. Division of Water.

And that's without a drop of rain.

"Any flow to Mill Creek or any of the tributaries would add to these days," District Conservationist Ken Johnson said.

Johnson has been studying this lake for thirty years and that's the kind of assurance people like Gregory Smith needs.

After being told there was only three weeks of water left, Smith closed his car wash for ten days.

"I came here to get the facts of the matter to find out if the situation is as critical as I had been told it was," Smith, who runs Spray and Shine Car Wash, admitted.

And now that he has no reason to worry, he's able to re-open his business.

"This lake has been lower before. That's documented," Commissioner Jackson assured.

Jackson is happy with how Tompkinsville residents responded to the water alert.

He said during that time, the city conserved about 400,000 gallons of water a day.

Jackson added that he hopes under the advisory, the city continues to conserve.

View water shortage capacities for Mill Creek Watershed No. 4 here.