Cambridge and Somerville are in a critical drought because of prolonged lack of rain for the second time in two years. Cambridge last week banned nonessential use of water such as automatic lawn sprinklers and irrigation systems and urged residents to conserve water by taking shorter showers, running dishwashers and washing machines on full loads and by fixing leaks.
Notification by Cambridge to the public about the drought on Friday noted that the city’s own reservoirs, together with backup from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority “is capable of meeting 100 percent of the city’s water demand in the event that precautionary measures ever need to be put in place.”
It turns out that Cambridge may need the regional system’s water sooner rather than later. Water Department managing director Mark Gallagher told members of the Water Board on Tuesday that “if we don’t get significant rain in the next 30 days we will have to supplement with the MWRA.” Gallagher said city councillors have been told about the contingency.
The message to councillors, which was not made public, went out after the state upped the status of the Northeast region, which includes Cambridge, from normal to “mild” drought, in mid-October, Gallagher said. He said he “somewhat expected” state officials to raise the status to the next level of “significant” drought this month and was surprised when the state update Nov. 7 put the region in a much worse status of “critical.”
The whole state except for Cape Cod and the islands is now in significant or critical drought, according to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Cambridge, Somerville and the surrounding region experienced critical droughts in 2016, 2020 and 2022.
Councillor Patty Nolan, who said during the 2022 drought that Cambridge Water Department officials should have started contacting large water users in the city before the situation reached emergency status, praised the response this time.
“I am glad the city is taking action,” she said, adding that she had been told the city is “reaching out to large users, which is important.” Nolan said she had asked officials “to do more aggressive messaging and outreach [to residents] since many people don’t know about the current drought conditions.” She said she also asked that workers continue to water city trees.
According to Gallagher at the Water Department, the city didn’t have to take critical drought response actions such as banning nonessential water use until last year because state regulations allowed Cambridge to fall under the less-serious MWRA drought status. Rules that took effect in January 2023 “removed that loophole,” Gallagher told the water board. Now, public water systems can use the regional water system status only if their capacity gives them at least a two-year water supply, he said.
Even the new regulations exempt many outdoor water uses from bans, such as watering city parks and college sports fields in early morning or evening hours, using water essential to a business, caring for trees and watering vegetable gardens, Gallagher said. The department has details on its website.
“It comes down to lawn irrigation,” Gallagher said, and most of those systems have been turned off as winter weather approaches, he added. The department has contacted large water users, such as Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as construction companies working on Cambridge projects, asking them to be “vigilant” in saving water, Gallagher said.
Figures from 2023 listing water use by address show that Massachusetts Institute of Technology buildings, including two student residences, are among the top five in Cambridge.
MIT spokesperson Sarah McDonnell said MIT is talking to the city “about our efforts to voluntarily reduce the institute’s water use during this period, including proactively shutting off 98 percent of all campus irrigation. We’re actively exploring further ways to reduce campus water consumption in the near term in light of the continuing drought conditions, and the institute will remain in conversation with the ity as the situation evolves.”
The city is allowed to withdraw an annual average of 16.2 million gallons a day and is well under the limit now, at about 10 million gallons a day, Gallagher said. The department hired a consultant to project water demand until 2050. The report, which will be presented to the water board early next year, concludes that demand won’t exceed the limit, even with population growth and new development, Gallagher said.
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The city golf course looks great. So do the playing fields at Harvard and Bb&N and Shady Hill.
But the rest of us should take shorter showers, got it.