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The City of North Branch has adopted a drought response and is restricting outdoor water use and encourages residents to conserve indoor water consumption too.

The city will be notifying municipal water customers they must go to an odd-even system for outside watering until further notice.

The area of east central Minnesota that makes up the St Croix Watershed,  is in a drought response mode due to dry conditions. Even with the rainfall events of late, we haven’t caught up with ordinary rainfall amounts and water bodies are losing depth.  

The city of Lindstrom has adopted every other day watering only  and Wyoming also adopted a ban on water use. Wyoming has a temporary permit allowing watering of new sod or seed that you get from city hall and post on your yard.

Cities of greater than 1,000 population are required to reduce water consumption under a state law, when an alert on drought conditions is issued by the Dept. of Natural Resources.  

The odd-even system in North Branch means property owners who are not on private wells can only water outside,  on days that match their house address last number ie: odd number or even number.  Violators will receive a verbal warning from authorities but the penalty may be stiffened depending on how well compliance goes.  There will be details on the watering rules in your North Branch August water bill too.

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