BUTTE - It’s only May but Butte-Silver Bow is already putting restrictions on watering your lawn citing last year’s drought and low levels in the city’s reservoirs.
“Our resources are down, our reservoirs are significantly down, they’re now near capacity at this point and who knows what’s going to happen in the next several months,” said Butte’s Water Treatment Plant Supervisor Jim Dennehy.
Residences with even-numbered addresses can water on even-numbered days and odd-numbered addresses can water on odd numbered days. No watering is allowed on the 31st.
Even though it has been a wet spring, last year’s drought hurt Butte’s Basin Creek Reservoir and Moulton Reservoir.
“And they just didn’t recharge, you know, this year and we’re concerned about that,” Dennehy said.
Basin Creek Reservoir has a capacity of 360 million gallons and currently sits at about 200 million gallons. Moulton Reservoir can hold a maximum of 230 million gallons and is only half full.
Butte’s third source of water is the Big Hole River, which gets plenty of pressure during the summer.
“There’s a lot of users on the river, you know, not only us, there’s agriculture down on the river, you know, a lot of farmers and ranchers,” said Dennehy.
Officials hope spring runoff will help replenish these resources, but it’s too early to tell.
