Water Dept. clarifies: Outdoor watering is OK two days a week

Contrary to what was stated by the Water Department last week (“Watering limited to one day a week as town works to repair leaks“), outdoor watering is permissible two days a week. Residents with even-numbered street addresses may water on Tuesdays and Saturdays; those with odd-numbered houses may do so on Wednesdays and Sundays. 

Lincoln is unusual in having both a Charles River Watershed registration and a Charles River Watershed permit from Mass. Department of Environmental Protection. Under the registration rules the town recently received, the town would be limited to watering one day a week as of May 1. 

“We are awaiting our new water permit as well. I thought the new registration represented conservation levels that were going to be implemented in our permit as well, Water Department Superintendent Darin LaFalam wrote in a LincolnTalk post. He contacted the DEP for clarification and was told that the permit supersedes the registration, so Lincoln should “go by our 2010 permit and ignore the new Registration conservation levels.”

Lincoln is required to implement outdoor water use restrictions from May 1 to September 30 because it has historically exceeded its three water permit withdrawal limits. In 2022, Lincoln did better — it complied with its 0.53 mgd (million gallons per day) withdrawal average and its maximum 10% proportion of unaccounted-for water (pending DEP review), but still exceeded the per-capita water use target of 65 gallons per day, LaFalam said.