Better, but not there yet
After last year’s drought, reservoir levels have improved, with watering restrictions remaining
“Our rainfall rates are more or less on target. We’re doing fine with our reservoir levels.” Patricia Sesto, town director of environmental affairs
GREENWICH — A wet fall and a snowy winter have paid off, filling Greenwich’s reservoir system with water at the dawn of spring.
The town experienced drought conditions last summer, but town Director of Environmental Affairs Patricia Sesto offered a positive report on reservoir levels this week as Greenwich moved into spring.
“Our rainfall rates are more or less on target,” Sesto said. “We’re doing fine with our reservoir levels.”
As of last Friday, the level in Greenwich’s reservoir system were at 86 percent, said Peter Fazekas, spokesman for the Aquarion Water Co.
“There are currently no drought triggers for the region,” Fazekas said. The water system in town includes the Bargh, Rockwood and Putnam Reservoirs,
There is one complicating factor in the reservoir system, keeping it from filling up. Construction work is underway to repair the more than 100-year-old Cos Cob Causeway. A portion of the causeway, which travels over the Rockwood Reservoir on South Stanwich Road, collapsed last September.
The repairs on the causeway and the dam are keeping the reservoir levels a little lower than normal for this time of year, Sesto said. Once that work is done, which is expected shortly, “the reservoir will recover” and go above the 86 percent level, she said.
“The project is proceeding well and the contractor is staying on schedule to not have an impact on filling the reservoir,” Deputy Commissioner of Public Works James Michel said. “We expect the road to reopen in the early summer.”
Fazekas said there is a 95 percent likelihood that the system will “spillover the dam,” which means the reservoir will hit 100 percent
capacity.
This is good news, he said, since rainfall has been about 2 inches below average in the past 90 days across the region.
“We could use some April showers definitely,” Fazekas said. But “overall, we’re optimistic.”
Irrigation ban remains
Despite the high levels in the Greenwich reservoir system, Aquarion has tentative approval from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to divert more water from the greater Bridgeport system to the Southwest regional pipeline that serves Greenwich and the surrounding towns.
The plan has drawn backlash in Fairfield, where the conservation commission says the project could harm the Mill River watershed. DEEP has limited the amount that can be transferred to 12.56 million gallons a day.
Last October, Aquarion enacted a mandatory irrigation ban for Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan, Stamford and Westport because of the drought. Fazekas said the ban was lifted over the winter.
Since 2016, Greenwich has restricted the irrigation of lawns through an ordinance, which remains in place, Sesto said. Under the town’s schedule, residents with even addresses (and no address number) can you irrigate their lawns on Sundays and Wednesdays. Those with odd addresses can irrigate on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
“We get questions every year on if (the watering restrictions will be) lifted, but no, that’s just the way we go forward,” Sesto said. “People need to be mindful of when their lawns need water. They only need about an inch a week. And if we get rain, don’t water your lawn also.”
If residents are installing or upgrading their irrigation systems, they should add “smart sensors,” which are calibrated to water lawns only when needed — instead of following a set schedule, she said.
Water only when you need it
Sesto also advised Greenwich homeowners to “be mindful of the growing season.”
“We had people still watering their lawns last October when the growing season was over and the lawn did not need it,” she said. Residents should “not start watering until we actually need to.”
The best time to start watering lawns is in June, Sesto said, provided that the town averages about 3 inches of rain per month in April and May.
Last year, the region saw below average rainfall for May.
“We were unusually dry last May and that set us up for trouble for the growing season,” Sesto said. “We saw the water demand in May start to show the drought conditions we were going to face.”
Aquarion’s figures show about half of its customers are “watering appropriately” with “only a very small percent who are egregiously watering,” she said. In those cases, Sesto said Aquarion will notify the customer.
“If everyone just uses their water in a reasonable manner, we’re fine,” Sesto said. “Imposing the restrictions in the drought year put us in a much better position. It makes a difference. People should not feel like they were sacrificing for no benefit.”