The town has surpassed expectations in its efforts to reduce water usage, according to figures from the South Berwick Water District. Customers have used about a fifth less water since the Aug. 11 ban on outdoor watering, nearly twice the goal set by the district.
“Conservation is working,” said Ryan Lynch, superintendent of the water district. “Everything we are doing is working.”
The district had hoped for a 10% reduction in use, which would have meant using 34,000 fewer gallons each day. In fact, water use has dropped by 19% or 59,000 gallons a day, “which is pretty significant,” Lynch said.
Despite the good news, the ban will stay in effect at least through September – and possibly longer – as the town’s water district works to recover from this summer’s drought.
“Everyone stopped using water immediately and we have actually seen some good news with the water supplies starting to possibly come back,” Lynch said, “but we have long-term deficits we need to make up, and we don’t see any major rains in the next couple of months.”
Before the ban and appeal for indoor water conservation, the district had predicted August’s water use would be one of the highest Augusts in district history.
The ban on watering in South Berwick applies only to customers of the district, who are on town water. Although Lynch said the district has no authority over people with private wells, he suggested all residents take note of the drought and “be reasonable, particularly if their wells have been impacted in the past.”
The South Berwick Water District operates four wells, with a fifth expected to come on line this year. The wells all feed the town’s system with supplies that can be pumped up to the reservoir on Powderhouse Hill, which holds a million gallons in storage.
A main break downtown last month cost the system 25,000 gallons, making up about 1-2% of the entire supply in storage, Lynch said. The break was likely due to dents and corrosion, normal wear and tear, and the loss was made up fairly quickly, he said.
Several nearby towns have not had water bans, largely because they depend on surface water. Berwick, York and Kittery all get water from rivers, which means sources can be replenished during heavy rains, the superintendent explained.
With groundwater supplies like South Berwick’s, quick and heavy rains yield more water than the ground can absorb and it vanishes as runoff rather than seeping into the ground and ultimately to aquifers, he said.
“Any significant amount of water will help us, but the best rain for us is a slow, long period of rain so a lot infiltrates into the ground,” Lynch said. “We would like to see long periods of low and slow rain.”
North Berwick, like South Berwick, depends on wells, “but they have good, high production wells” while South Berwick’s are medium production, Lynch explained.
The weather forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates an average amount of precipitation in this area, which means “it’s going to take a while to be back to where we need to be.”
According to NOAA, over 58% of Maine is experiencing abnormally dry to drought conditions.
Although customers were asked to do their best to conserve water indoors, Lynch said the recent reduction appears to be almost entirely due to the outside watering ban.
“This reduction confirms that the significant water demand increase of 35-40% we see during the summer months is largely due to outside water use,” according to the district.
Lynch noted the district is always looking to get new supplies on line, especially with the changing weather patterns, in part attributed to climate change.
“If weather pattern holds you will probably see more towns putting bans in place,” he predicted. “We are not sure how climate change is going to affect our supplies.”
The slow, long periods of rain have become less frequent while the extremes of weather have meant more dry periods and more days with heavy rains in a short period of time, he explained.
“The seasonal drought outlook for the Northeast for the period ending in November looks promising that the precipitation deficit will start to be reduced in the coming months, but only time will tell,” according to the district.
In the meantime, Lynch praised the people of town for acting fast to begin restoring the town’s water supply.
“This is an awesome community,” he said, “not only our customers but also the people we work with through the town. I’m very happy to be part of this community.”
