Laurel City Council approves first reading of water restriction ordinance

LAUREL – The city of Laurel is taking action to get ready for an upcoming water tower proj - ect.

The Laurel City Council approved the first reading of a water restriction ordinance during its Monday meeting.

According to the ordinance, its purpose is "to adopt a plan for the declaration of a water supply watch, curtailment or emergency and the imple - mentation of voluntary and mandatory water conservation measures throughout the city in the event such a watch, curtailment or emergency is declared." "It's a proposed ordinance," Laurel Mayor Keith Knudsen said in a follow-up interview. "The reason for it is, we're required periodically to do maintenance on our water tower.

"It got pushed back for a couple of seasons because of the downtown project," he said. "We were redoing water mains and those kinds of things." The maintenance on Laurel's water tower likely will be scheduled for April, with the work mainly being the repainting of the interior and exterior of the structure.

"The water tower will be out of commission for about a month, so we'll be pumping from our wells," Knudsen said.

"It will limit how much water can be used, ob - viously," he said. "That was the primary reason to have something in place." If approved, the ordinance would feature the following classes of water use established for users on the city's water system: -Class 1 Water Watch: Water used for outdoor watering; either public or private, trees, shrubs, plants, parks, golf courses, playing fields, or the washing of motor vehicles, boats, trailers, side - walks, driveways or the exterior of any building or structure.

-Class 2 Water Curtailment: Water used for lawns, gardens, swimming pools or other recre - ational areas.

-Class 3 Water Emergency: Domestic usage, any commercial or industrial purpose, other than that which would be included in either Class 1 or 2. Water necessary only to sustain human life and maintain standards of hygiene and sanita - tion.

Knudsen noted a secondary reason for the or -

dinance is the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District's decision to limit the amount of ground - water use in 2023 because of how dry northeast Nebraska has been during the past year.

The Lower Elkhorn NRD's October decision will limit municipal water supply wells to 250 gallons per day per capita for any city or town in a D3 or D4 drought designation, as determined by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

"This would kind of tie in with that, too," Knudsen said of the city's ordinance. "If they would restrict us, then we would have a way to restrict watering of lawns and things like that." The second reading of the ordinance will be put on the council's agenda for the March 13 meeting, which will be held at 6 p.m.

The council could either approve the sec - ond reading next month and the third reading in April before approving the ordinance or waive the second and third readings of the ordinance during the March meeting and then approve it.

"We'll want to have something in place be - fore they would start the maintenance work," Knudsen said.