Town bans all outside watering

By Johanna Seltz, Town Correspondent

Despite the rain, the town’s water supply is so low that officials have decided to ban all outside water use.

“The reservoir keeps going down; last read, we were at 55 percent" of capacity, said Lou Dutton, Braintree’s waterworks assistant superintendent.

Braintree shares its water supply -- Great Pond Reservoir -- with Holbrook and Randolph. The tighter water conservation measure kicked in last week when the water level at Great Pond fell below 60 percent, Dutton said.

Great Pond, which straddles Randolph and Braintree, holds 1.4 billion gallons of water, he said.

Dutton said that residents have been complying with earlier, less stringent water restrictions and that water usage is down about 15 percent.

That decrease has helped, as has the recent rain, but it’s not enough to replenish the reservoir, he said.

“We need a good 3 or 4 inches of rain, easy. It’s been so dry that an inch of rain is going to go into the ground before there’s any runoff. At this point we are taking every precaution and we’ll see what Mother Nature does for us,” he said.

Johanna Seltz can be reached at seelenfam@verizon.net.