Hillsborough Faces Stage 5 Water Restrictions

Hillsborough

and parts of Orange County need to tighten the taps another notch. The Orange-Alamance Water System moved to Stage 5 water restrictions Tuesday.

Outdoor irrigation on any day of the week at any hour is prohibited. Pools can no longer replenish water lost to evaporation.

Lake Orange is low and officials said barring dramatic and unlikely rainfall, the Orange-Alamance Water System has 30 days of water left.

"As of this morning, when I went out to measure it, we were 7 feet, 5 1/2 inches below full," said Kevin Lindley,water system engineer.

The town of Hillsborough is also cutting back on water allocation to some large industrial users.

Under the new guidelines, the town's biggest industrial user of water, Piedmont Minerals, will have its allocation cut nearly in half.

"It's very serious," Lindley said. "We've never been in stage 5 before. And there's only one more stage after this."

The next stage involves restricting in-house water use.

Hillsborough's water system is separate from the one that supplies communities in southern Orange County. The Orange Water and Sewer Authority serves Chapel Hill and Carrboro. That system is still under mandatory restrictions that allow limited yard irrigation.