Water levels in Flint’s Pond since 2010 (click to enlarge). The last two red X’s indicate levels in July 2016 and July 2017.
Despite the rainy spring and summer thus far, lawn watering via sprinklers is still permitted in Lincoln only once a week because Flint’s Pond has not yet rebounded to a level that would allow more water use.
Though watering is normally allowed two days a week in the summer, the Board of Water Commissioners banned all outdoor watering in August 2016 during the drought. The board relaxed it to once a week in May and maintained that restriction in June and July.
Precipitation for 2017 overall has been normal, with the first three months below normal and the second three months above. Although the Flint’s Pond’s water level has risen, it’s still markedly below where it usually is at this time of year, according to Water Department Superintendent Greg Woods.
“The water use by our customers has actually been below normal thanks to their compliance with the water restrictions. If the rainfall continues and our customers continue to conserve, we might be able to relax back to the two-day-a-week restriction next month,” he said.
The two-day-a-week schedule is the normal restriction for Lincoln from May 1 through September 30 as per the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) because Lincolnites use more than 65 gallons per person per day on average, “and we also draw more water annually from our water sources than allowed by our DEP permit,” Woods added.
Some have wondered why Flint’s Pond is still low when the nearby Cambridge Reservoir appears to be full. The reservoir filled up more quickly because it has a very large watershed to capture the precipitation and funnel it into the reservoir’s basin, Woods said. Flint’s Pond has a relatively small watershed and essentially sees a 1:1 ratio of precipitation and pond level increases, compared to about 2:1 for the Cambridge Reservoir. The Flint’s Pond dam is not overtopping or leaking and is experiencing the normal amount of seepage underneath, Woods said.
The water commissioners have open meetings on the second Wednesday of every month at 4:30 p.m. in the Water Department pump house to review the latest data and decide what (if any) water restrictions to impose. “We expect the water level to be lower in the end of the summer, so at the next meeting, we will compare the measured level to the normal level in August,” said Water Commissioner Ruth Ann Hendrickson.
See the Water Department web page for details on what types of watering ares allowed and when.