water rationing is coming to Massachusetts

excerpts from http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/30/a_ban_on_odd_even_watering/

Faced with severely low levels in reservoirs and streams and ever-increasing pressures from development and population growth, local officials like Cantoreggi, state regulators, and some environmentalists are pushing for a more standardized regional approach that takes into account advances in water conservation and lawn care techniques.

One of those advances, Cantoreggi and others say, would be the elimination of the most popular type of restriction, the odd-even water ban. Currently in use in at least 11 communities, the ban typically allows homeowners with even-numbered street addresses to water on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and those with odd-numbered street addresses to water on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, with no watering on Mondays.

In his experience, Cantoreggi said, the odd-even restrictions actually serve as a memory trigger for many homeowners, who end up watering more than they might have otherwise, not less. When he was the DPW director in Millis, he said, residential water use increased when the town put the ban in place.

In Franklin, he said, the town has put in place one of the toughest water bans in the area, a one-day per week restriction that environmentalists and state officials are holding up as a model. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day each year, Franklin residents are allowed to water their lawns only on the day of the week that their trash is collected.

Cantoreggi said the ban has been so effective that the town didn't need to put it into effect this year, but did so anyway to help condition residents to use less water.

After adopting new rules in 2004, the DEP is just now beginning to issue new water use permits to towns and cities in the western suburbs, Pickering said. (The limits will mostly affect cities and towns west of Route 128 that get their water from local reservoirs and wells and not from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.) For many towns and cities along the Charles and Concord rivers, that will mean a limit of 65 gallons per resident per day, averaged over the course of a year. Towns that go over the limit will be required to implement water conservation strategies.

Duane LaVangie, chief of the DEP's Water Management Program, confirmed the tougher rules, saying that many communities with water use issues will soon be required to impose one- or two-day a week restrictions rather than the odd-even one.

The new restrictions like those in Franklin are actually in line with advanced thinking on lawn care. Some specialists have told the DEP that watering deeply, but less often, actually encourages healthier, more drought-resistant grass, while limiting weeds, which have shallower roots.