By Alex Malm
At the Aug. 29 Londonderry Town Council meeting, drought conditions in town and across the state of New Hampshire was discussed.
Londonderry Town Manager, Michael Malaguti, said they are going towards worse conditions.
“We are still in a severe drought. We’re inching towards a worst drought,” said Malaguti.
Malaguti stated they are keeping an eye on the weather forecast, which looks warm and that right now they are at level 2 for their watering restrictions ordinance.
It was explained by Malaguti the Town Council may want to consider going to the next step for now.
“We could do nothing, we could take the next step and ban the watering of lawns,” said Malaguti.
Town Councilor, Deb Paul, said at this point no one is going to be able to save their lawns anyways and she thinks they should take the next step.
“I would like to see us just stop, put a ban on it,” said Paul.
Town Council Chairman, John Farrell, said that right now they are asking people to be responsible and hopefully do the right thing. He was in support of moving to level 3 however.
The rest of the Town Council didn’t agree and voted against going to level 3, which means it failed 2-2.
Also during the meeting, it was brought up by Malaguti that they had received a request from someone who just moved into their new home and had the lawn hydroseeded and was seeking relief from the drought ordinance to allow them to continue to water their lawn.
He said if that couldn’t be done, the resident was then looking to be able to have watering done on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
One question that was asked was if they had any policies in place for granting waivers like that.
“There’s no process,” said Malaguti.
Malaguti said that all the ordinance does is grant the Town Council to grant waivers when they see fit.
Farrell said he wasn’t supportive of granting a waiver.
“I’m not sure why we’re getting involved,” says Farrell.
It was pointed out by Malaguti that the Town Council would have to approve it and that he couldn’t grant it on his own.
“Their neighbors have the same problem,” said Farrell.
The Town Council opted against allowing a waiver.