No water restrictions on tap for Island

The Town Board has backed away from temporarily banning the use of aquifer-fed irrigation systems.

At its work session last week, the board seemed poised to shut down the systems for a time in light of continuing statewide drought conditions. But at Tuesday’s work session, Supervisor Jim Dougherty noted that the dramatic step would not be necessary now.

“I get the impression that there’s no need to jump in,” Mr. Dougherty said. “We’ve picked one prohibition or ban.”

Mr. Dougherty was referring to six mandatory restrictions called for by the Water Advisory Committee (WAC), including topping off pools, car washing and serving tap water in Island restaurants.

The supervisor asked how much water would be saved if the ban on irrigation was put in place. Councilman Paul Shepherd said that the 83 remaining irrigation systems on the Island pump about 940,000 gallons of water a week.

The matter of restricting water use came to a head when the WAC reported last month that all 13 Island test wells were below their median levels for past July readings, and two well levels are at their lowest for any July on record.

These figures, along with a statewide “drought watch” in effect, spurred the WAC to call for the mandatory restrictions.

Mr. Dougherty and his colleagues agreed to wait until the August test well readings will be available, probably by the end of the week, before acting further.

“I’m still O.K. with shutting down the irrigation, even if I don’t love doing it,” Councilman Paul Shepherd said. “The numbers I’ve seen are not comforting.”

Mr. Shepherd acknowledged pressure to act on water restrictions. “It’s a hot seat up here and you don’t want to look like we don’t care,” he said. “If there was a place to save water, it would be [irrigation systems]. I don’t want to be the guy who says, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”