NAHANT — The Nahant Select Board recently addressed the Level 3 Critical Drought status impacting the entire Northeast region of Massachusetts, including Essex County.
Town Administrator Alison Nieto shared with the Board that areas of the county with a local water supply have instituted a water ban on all non-essential outdoor use, which includes cities like Lynn.
“The town of Nahant relies on MWRA and [they] haven’t listed any type of ban, but I do think that people should be mindful of outdoor sprinkling and just conservation of water in general,” she said.
Nieto said she has talked to Fire Chief Austin Antrim about the drought and that he agrees that spreading awareness will serve as a “good reminder for everybody.”
During public comment, Vi Patek shared that she was actually the one who brought up the water usage to Nieto after reading about the drought and water ban in Lynn in The Daily Item.
Patek has served as president of Nahant S.W.I.M (Safer Waters in Massachusetts), a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting regional waters and beaches, since 2011.
“I didn’t know about the MWRA situation, so that’s good news,” she told the Board. “But I do think it would be a really good thing for the public to understand good practices of lawn sprinkling systems because a lot of these contractors are not, even though it has nothing to do with their benefit, they’re not really giving the best advice to their customers.”
Patek then brought up “the best advice” that she’s found “across the years of studying this,” which includes that sprinklers should not be run in the middle of the day because “the water evaporates and you lose it,” and that sprinkler systems should be run once a week at dawn rather than every day. Lastly, another key point is that systems need only one inch of water per week.
“Those three things right there can save so much water,” said Patek, who then mentioned how the town will be getting new water meters, which will provide residents with accurate billing as well as usage.
“People don’t know because they’re off at work and they don’t see their system running,” she stated. “I think it would be really good if the town would give advice, and also practice on its own sprinkler systems, to these issues because water is important to everybody, no matter what the level is in the MWRA.”
