The region’s dry conditions prompted the Haines Borough to issue a mandatory water restriction on Tuesday, prohibiting lawn sprinklers until further notice. The restriction does not prohibit watering flower and vegetable gardens, but the borough encourages people to use hand watering and drip irrigation methods.

To enforce the restriction, by code the borough can turn people’s water off if it deems their usage wasteful. “We’re just going to be polite and ask people to work with us,” said assistant director of water and sewer operations for the borough Dennis Durr. “I don’t think we’re going to really have to worry about enforcement. People are going to want to work with us.”

Earlier this month the borough stopped selling water to cruise ships, a step the borough has taken occasionally to conserve water for the past three summers. But the borough hasn’t issued mandatory water restrictions in years, said Krista Kielsmeier, executive assistant to the borough manager. She said the borough does not consider the abnormally dry weather conditions a drought.

The intent of the restriction is to inform the public and to take preventative measures in dry weather, Durr said.

“We’re just trying to be proactive in putting the message out there,” Durr said. “The biggest waste of water right now, this time of year, is the sprinkler.” Durr said excessive water is used when people water their lawns with sprinklers overnight.

Haines is having one of its longest dry periods in years, Durr said. Amid a burn ban and high fire danger declared by the Haines fire department, “if there is some sort of (major fire) event, we want to be sure that everything (water storage) is completely topped off. That’s our highest priority,” he said.

The borough has about 1.3 million gallons of potable water storage capacity. If a large fire broke out, it could require up to 1 million gallons of water to put it out, as the fire in the Fort Seward barracks did decades ago, Durr said. Typical fires require between 50,000 gallons to quench. Over the past three Junes, Haines consumed 325,000 gallons of water on average daily in June.

Haines’ water pumps have already reached capacity. “Right now, we are making as much water as we can. We’re not losing water but we’re just maintaining it,” Durr said. “We’re anticipating more dry weather and we want to make sure that our resources have the capacity to fight a fire if that is the case.”

“The conditions are just too right for a (fire) incident,” said Haines Fire Chief Al Giddings. Since the beginning of July, Haines has been “very high” on the fire index, a measurement that predicts fire danger. On Wednesday, humidity increased and the fire danger lessened somewhat.

“We were at ‘very high’ yesterday and earlier this week. Early on Wednesday morning, Haines dropped down one step from a ‘very high’ to a ‘high’ rating. The burn ban shall still be effect,” Giddings said. “The possibility of a wildland fire from (an open) barbeque or a grass fire, the potential for that to rapidly extend beyond control is still high.”

Giddings said rain expected over the weekend will help ease the fire danger, but “we’d need several days of very measured precipitation for it to really make a dent in our fire index.”

Durr said he isn’t worried about overall water supply. Haines gets about 80 percent of its summer water from Lily Lake, and he says the lake’s supply is doing fine. Durr said he thinks excess water consumption is coming from consumers watering their lawns with sprinklers overnight, and a large volume is being lost through leaks in the system. “Water leaks could be up to 25 percent of your loss. That’s a pretty comfortable estimate,” he said.

Durr said the borough is working harder to find and fix leaks in the water system, in addition to restricting sprinkler usage.

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