Water Restrictions

Marylanders are overflowing with questions in the wake of the mandatory statewide water restrictions imposed this week. Here are some of them, and the answers from state, federal and private experts.The governor said we can water our "gardens" but that his azaleas will go thirsty. Can we water our flowers and shrubs or not?The only outright watering ban is on lawns. We can water flowers, shrubs or vegetables, in gardens or pots, so long as we do it from cans, buckets or hand-held hoses. No sprinklers, no soaker hoses, no drips.

Adel Hizi said he never realized how important water was. Then a major water main break cut off the supply to 100,000 customers in Baltimore County for the weekend - while Hizi and his wife were trying to care for their 9-month-old baby. As the water stoppage dragged on, and as Baltimore's Department of Public Works was unable to say when the water would be turned on, the Owings Mills resident was considering taking his family to a hotel. The dirty dishes and dirty clothes were piling up, everyone needed a bath and he was using large containers of drinking water to empty the toilet.

Residents in three northern Anne Arundel County ZIP code areas will face water restrictions starting May 1. The restrictions - which apply to ZIP codes 21226, 21122 and 21060 - are necessary to repair a Baltimore water line that broke last year, said County Executive Janet S. Owens. The city water line supplies water to parts of northern Anne Arundel. The restrictions, which will remain in place indefinitely, will be in effect from 5 p.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, and all day Friday through Sunday.

Fatal crash victim Is identified 3 Anne Arundel County police have identified the victim of a fatal crash Thursday as Douglas Barry Newgent, 43, of the 3500 block of Patuxent River Road in Davidsonville. Newgent lost control of his Honda Civic on an exit ramp from Route 3 to Route 32 in Millersville and crashed into a tree. The vehicle was torn in half, and Newgent died at the scene, police said. - Andrea F. Siegel Water restrictions now mandatory in areas 4 The voluntary water restrictions announced Thursday for 150,000 residents of Northwest Baltimore and Baltimore County have been made mandatory.

Repair of a badly deteriorated 54-inch water main in southwestern Baltimore County is forcing mandatory outdoor summer water restrictions for Howard County residents using public water, starting May 1, county officials said yesterday. Outdoor water use will be regulated on an odd-even basis until at least Sept. 1, said county James M. Irvin, the public works director. Residents and businesses with even-numbered street addresses will be allowed to use water outdoors on even-numbered days, and odd-numbered addresses may use water on odd-numbered days.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. lifted water restrictions for Harford County and other areas served by Baltimore's water supply Thursday. Water restrictions were lifted for most of Central Maryland last month, but Harford -- along with parts of Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties -- remained under restriction because of water contracts with the city. Baltimore's reservoirs were at lower-than-acceptable levels at the time. Those reservoirs now contain more than 61 billion gallons of water, which is close to normal for this time of year.

Most western and northern Anne Arundel County residents will face mandatory water restrictions from May 3 to Oct. 1, due to the shutdown of a corroded pipeline, the county announced yesterday. The 54-inch water main from Baltimore County has been out of commission since January and was found last month to have significantly deteriorated. Replacing it could take about a year, but summer is the concern because that's when demand spikes, said Pam Jordan, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. lifted water restrictions for Harford County and other areas served by Baltimore's water supply Thursday. Water restrictions were lifted for most of Central Maryland last month, but Harford - along with parts of Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties - remained under restriction because of water contracts with the city. Baltimore's reservoirs were at lower-than-acceptable levels at the time. Those reservoirs now contain more than 61 billion gallons of water, which is close to normal for this time of year.

Teresa Kostelec of Ellicott City took out a second mortgage so she and her family could swim in their back yard next month. Now, because of the drought, they are staring at a huge hole that might remain dry -- unless they pay perhaps hundreds of dollars extra."

The state may have relaxed drought-related water restrictions, allowing residents to water trees and shrubs and wash cars, but in South Carroll, it's water restrictions as usual.Carroll County's most populous region has had restrictions on outdoor water use for the third consecutive summer. Residents can tend to lawns and cars only on alternate days, according to street address.Before the weekend's rain, the water level at Liberty Reservoir -- which supplies nearly 6,800 homes and businesses -- had risen slightly after several storms last month, but not enough to warrant lifting the restrictions.

The building where Johns Hopkins Hospital cares for its transplant patients is on water restrictions this week after routine tests of the water system on July 2 turned up evidence of the bacterium that causes Legionnaires' disease. A hospital spokesman said no patients or employees have been infected by the organism, which can cause a lung infection fatal in 5 percent to 30 percent of cases. "No one is sick. Nor has anyone at the hospital been identified, either patient or staff, as having picked up a Legionella infection," said Hopkins spokesman David March.

A drought that first shriveled the corn and hay crops in Southern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore is forcing some residents across the state to suspend watering their lawns, filling their pools and washing their cars. The latest city to issue mandatory restrictions is Westminster, which joins two other municipalities in Carroll County in banning outdoor water use. Emmitsburg in Frederick County and much of St. Mary's County have also put the brakes on outdoor watering in the past month.

As persistent dry conditions have led several Carroll County municipalities to enact voluntary water restrictions, Mount Airy could go one step further to temporarily ban the use of outdoor sprinklers as soon as this week, Mayor Frank Johnson said. Mount Airy officials recently unveiled a tiered system for phasing in possible water restrictions that could last until Sept. 15 and delay new water and sewer connections from being established before that date, Johnson said. "Usage is inching up as the drought continues," Johnson said.

Officials at the Maryland Department of the Environment had little choice but to warn Westminster to stop issuing building permits until the city develops an adequate water supply. In times of drought, Westminster is susceptible to a water shortage, not only because of inadequate resources but also because officials there have permitted so much new development in recent years. By the city's own accounting, about 500 new residential connections are in various stages of approval. That's big growth in a community of 18,000.

Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens has ordered an outdoor-watering ban through at least Thursday for the northern third of the county, pointing to an extreme loss of water pressure that she called "alarming." The around-the-clock outdoor ban affects an estimated 200,000 residents on the public water system in the county's most populated section, from Laurel and Brooklyn Park to Glen Burnie and Pasadena. This marks the second time Owens has instituted an outdoor prohibition on water use this year to combat shortages.

Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens imposed mandatory water restrictions in portions of northern Anne Arundel yesterday as repairs continued on a 42-inch water main that ruptured in Glen Burnie on Saturday evening. "We may have held off a little bit if we were not facing this intense heat but we know water usage goes up when it's this hot," Owens said. "And we just want to make sure everybody has water." Residents in parts of Glen Burnie, Pasadena, Curtis Bay and Orchard Beach are to stop all outdoor water use - such as watering lawns and washing cars - until the broken pipe has been replaced, said Ronald E. Bowen, the county's director of public works.

Don't let all this rain flush the word drought out of your vocabulary. The two inches that poured down over the drizzly, dreary weekend weren't nearly enough to overcome two years of dryness and refill the region's half-empty reservoirs. As a result, city and state restrictions continue on using water for washing cars and other nonessential purposes. The National Weather Service said the rain that fell during the weekend brought the Baltimore region's total to 34.23 inches for the year.

Water pressure in Taneytown bounced up to near normal almost immediately after the mayor imposed mandatory restrictions on most outdoor uses last Thursday, officials said yesterday. The restrictions were tightened Tuesday evening by Mayor W. Robert Flickinger, who changed the penalty for violating the restrictions that ban outdoor uses such as filling pools, washing cars and watering lawns. His new order eliminates a grace period that officials feared might increase water use. His original order provided for only warnings until Monday but now allows fines after one warning.

For all the rain that fell last week on Anne Arundel County, none of it made a dent in the mandatory water restrictions faced by thousands of residents in the western and northern tiers of the county. Five days of storms that ended Wednesday dropped 4 1/2 inches of rain on Severn and more than 5 inches on Crofton, Odenton and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, according to estimates by the National Weather Service. But if an effort by the county's Department of Public Works remains on schedule, water restrictions that have been in place since May could be relaxed or lifted weeks before the scheduled end date of Oct. 1. The department has installed more than a mile of water main from the Dorsey Run water treatment plant in an effort to create a pipeline that would direct about 1 million gallons daily toward affected communities from Maryland City to Brooklyn Park, according to Matt Mirenzi, a utility operations administrator for the department.

ISSUE: Water supply continues to be an issue in Anne Arundel County. Yesterday, county officials lifted a ban on outdoor water use along the far western and northern tiers of the county that had been implemented last week. But the county now returns to water restrictions that went into effect in early May. Though the situation has improved, the restrictions are expected to be in place until October, and county officials are imploring residents to adhere to them. The police have said officers would issue warnings for those who violate the restrictions, then hand out fines starting at $125 a violation.