Water woes: Not the rain, the sprinklers

It may still be too early for homeowners to look past their soggy lawn, the drowned plantings, and the mildew in the basement. But as the region dries out from the recent record rainfall, water suppliers and regulators are looking anxiously toward dry summer months that suck the green from the grass. They are exhorting consumers to conserve.

The growing summertime demand for water is a long-term problem for municipal systems, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Outdoor watering can double or even triple water use on summer days, threatening the adequacy and safety of water systems.

Wendy Garpow, manager of the Greenscapes program, a collaborative effort to educate residents on caring for lawns and gardens without using excessive water and chemicals, said the recent deluge was only a temporary oversupply. It can't address the long-term issue of escalating demand for water, she said.

Garpow and other conservationists, as well as state regulators, contend that the growing popularity of automated sprinkler systems is exacerbating the problem, particularly in fast-growing Southeastern Massachusetts.

While acknowledging that a beautiful lawn can have a positive psychological effect on people, they say the way many home- and business owners approach lawn care places stress on municipal water systems and runs counter to conservation needs.

''What is really eye-opening is the fact that watering a 1-acre lawn with just an inch of water uses 26,000 gallons of water," Garpow said. One inch a week is a conventional rule-of-thumb ration that many automated sprinkler systems are programmed to deliver over the May-to-September watering season -- a practice that adds up to a half-million gallons of outdoor watering a year.

To help reduce unnecessary watering by automated systems, Greenscapes is offering reduced-cost ''irrigation audits" by a certified professional. The audits lead to fine-tuning outdoor watering to save both water and money. The Greenscapes program also hosts a series of workshops, mails reference guides to area residents, and offers discounts on water-conserving plants in regional nurseries. (See the website www.greenscapes.org for details.)

Cutting back on watering will also help municipal water systems, which are stretched to deliver millions of gallons more during the typically low-rain summer months than they are asked to pump on average. ''There is a mismatch between demand and Mother Nature" during those months, said George Zoto of the Department of Environmental Protection's water management program.

Data about water use from member communities in the Greenscapes program bear it out. Towns like Scituate, Duxbury, and Marshfield on average use almost twice as much water over the five-month summer watering period than for the five winter months. (See accompanying chart.)

At a time when the state is toughening water use standards, the difference between summer and winter use suggests that outdoor watering is a significant factor in driving up regional water demand. Automated sprinkler systems, favored by businesses and promoted by developers of large residential lots, typically release thousands of gallons of water every time the system's controller triggers the flow. While the number of automated systems is unknown, Garpow said, they have become increasingly common as builders routinely include them in new construction. For homeowners with expensive homes and large lots, outdoor watering becomes simply part of their routine household costs.

And many automatic irrigation systems actually deliver more than an inch a week, said Garpow. ''The problem is, it's hard for people to understand how much water they're using when they run automated irrigation systems, unless they have a separate water meter," she said.

Automated watering is expensive: Some homeowners face bills of as much as $500 a month from public water systems, Garpow said.

At the Pinehills, an upscale community in Plymouth where lots are much smaller than those generally required by area towns for new homes, newcomers have been warned on the Great Island neighborhood website to expect high water bills. One resident reported paying $500 per month; the bill was reduced to between $200 and $300 per month after settings on the resident's automated system were adjusted. (Water bills at the Pinehills are also affected by a high per-gallon cost charged by the community's own water system.)

Lavish outdoor watering habits contrast starkly with new state standards over how much water people ought to be using. In a water management policy adopted in January, the state set the standards of 65 gallons per person per day in ''high- and moderate-stressed basins" and 80 gallons per day in low-stressed areas.

Those standards will come into play when the Department of Environmental Protection acts on permit requests for new wells, expansions of currently existing water sources, and permit renewals. The policy states that high-stressed areas are required to limit summer consumption with outdoor watering restrictions.

Dwayne Levangie, director of the state's water management program, said stressed basins in the area communities participating in the Greenscapes program include the Weir River in Hingham and Hull and parts of Norwell, Weymouth, and Pembroke. Those are all considered ''moderate stressed" areas, he said.

Implementing the new water use standards is tricky, and state regulators are still considering whether permits should say communities ''must meet" or must ''strive to meet" the per-person limits designed to protect the environment. ''That's an issue," said Levangie. ''How will it be worded?"

But the harsher standards, many believe, are sorely needed. Regulators point to the Ipswich River, which has run dry in some stretches, as an example of the environmental degradation that can result from pumping too much water from the ground.

Meanwhile, regulators also see the drawing of water from private wells to irrigate lawns as part of the problem. Heavy use of water not only affects the environment by drawing down groundwater, it also serves as a ''bad example for neighbors," says the state's lawn-watering guide. The state doesn't have numbers for how much water is drawn by private wells as opposed to municipal systems.

Even town-owned buildings in some communities, conservationists say, run sprinklers during summer droughts, ignoring concern about town watering restrictions by posting signs stating ''private well."

But, like municipal water systems, private wells draw on the same exhaustible resource, said Garpow.

''Whether you have a big straw or one of the thousands of little straws," she said, ''the water comes from the same place."

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox@gmail.com.