A view of the North Stamford Reservoir, photographed on June 23, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut.

FAIRFIELD — Residents and businesses are now only allowed to use their sprinklers twice a week, the latest community to join Aquarion Water Company’s mandatory watering schedule.

The effort is designed to help conserve water as the region is faced with more frequent droughts, officials said. The schedule breaks down when people can use sprinkler irrigation based on their address and runs from April 1 to Oct. 31.

“It’s important to conserve and save as much of the water as we can because these flash droughts are coming without any notice,” George Logan, the director of community relations for Aquarion, said at a recent Fairfield selectmen meeting.

The schedule helps reduce overwatering of lawns and gardens and in turn ensures there’s water available for people to use themselves and for fire protection.

The ban only applies to sprinklers, which Logan said is an inefficient way to water plants anyway. Homes and businesses with automatic sprinkler irrigation systems often use about 40 percent more water than properties without those systems.

“It’s not that you can’t water your plants and flowers, but you have to use your hoses and drip irrigation outside of the twice-per-week watering,” Logan said.

The schedule became mandatory for Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford in 2017. Westport and Newtown were added in 2018 and East Granby, Granby and Simsbury were added in 2021, Peter Fazekas, a spokesman for Aquarion, said by email this week.

Fairfield was introduced to the schedule last year on a voluntary basis before the mandatory restrictions went into effect this year.

“This is going to be a shock to our residents,” First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick said at a recent meeting where the program was addressed. “Obviously Fairfield cares deeply about conservation efforts but people like to have their lawns green.”

Groton, Mystic and Stonington were also added this year.

“Our initial focus has been on towns that have the highest outdoor water usage in our service area,” Fazekas said. “However, we plan to continue expanding the mandatory schedule throughout our entire service area. Our goal is to have customers irrigate more efficiently.”

More than 2 billion gallons of water has been saved since the schedule started with millions of gallons of water expected to be saved this year, according to Aquarion.

The schedule allows people to use their sprinklers from midnight to 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. to midnight on their allowed days. Odd number addresses can use them on Saturdays and Tuesdays. Even number addresses and properties with no address numbers can use them on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Residents, businesses and municipalities are able to file for exemptions through the company’s website, aquarionwater.com. This could include those with gardens, new plantings and larger spaces with weather controls, such as golf courses or athletic fields, where it’s necessary to water more than twice a week.

“We want to be very reasonable about this,” Logan said.

Anyone who violates the schedule will receive a reminder of the limit from Aquarion. The first selectman will be notified about anyone who violates it three times, though Logan said it rarely gets to that point. He said the company has the authority to cut the water off to the offender but that has never happened.

He added the community generally wants to do the right thing and conserve water. Often times the violations happen because they just didn’t know about the schedule.

Logan said it’s important to conserve now, because it’s hard to predict what the rainfall will be over the summer and fall and company officials don’t want a similar situation to happen like the drought in 2016. At that time, the reservoirs were at about 90 percent capacity at the beginning of the season and were down to about 40 percent by the end of the year.

There was also a significant drought in 2020 and some communities had to have irrigation bans.

“Due to climate change, we believe more frequent droughts and the data is showing that as well,” Logan said.

The importance of restricting outdoor watering was highlighted during the recent hearings on the diversion permit Aquarion applied for that would bring more water from the Greater Bridgeport System down to southwestern Connecticut.

Fairfield environmental organizations opposed the permit and called out the high outdoor water use in Greenwich.

Logan said the diversion permit itself hasn’t had any effect on the water system or Fairfield being added to the schedule because Aquarion hasn’t diverted any additional water yet.

Katrina Koerting covers the environment, Redding, New Milford and surrounding towns for The News-Times. She joined The News-Times in 2015 after spending a few years as a reporter in Virginia.