DROUGHT CONTINGENCY PLAN UPDATE May 7, 2025
Stage 3 Drought Contingency Protocol is still in place. There are some misconceptions that there are
some odd/even water days allowed. At this this any non – essential water use is prohibited.
Businesses are allowed to operate as needed but asked to conserve water in any capacity that they
can.
The City of Auburn and Board of Public Works are working to ensure public ball fields are
maintained by using non potable water from outside sources so that summer activities may continue.
At this time there are emergency water resources prepared to be trucked in if the reservoir is unable
to maintain necessary levels for residential and commercial customers. Short-term solutions for
collection are in process and long-term solutions are being researched.
We appreciate community members that are working to conserve resources. While the situation is
concerning, we are fortunate that there is water available outside of the BPW area that we are able
to tap into. We have customers that are collecting the little amounts of rainfall available for gardens
and flowers. In addition, customers have also been filling water totes from areas outside of our
community. These efforts will contribute to being able to maintain the reservoir levels so that trucking
will hopefully not be necessary. The water tables in the BPW area are not recharging and need
rainfall too so that our wells can fill and resume pumping to normal levels.
The restrictions are not meant to punish the community, but rather an effort to be good stewards of
the resources that are currently available to all our customers, so that drastic measures can be
avoided. We appreciate all of our customers and work hard to ensure that water is safe and
available. We continue to provide data with daily readings on the number of gallons pumped,
pumping times, and reservoir levels. This will keep the public informed of current conditions. See the
City of Auburn website at https://auburn.ne.gov for updates.
If you have questions about the status of any of our activities, please contact the BPW and we are
happy to provide you with statistics of rainfall, well levels and daily monitoring of the water pumped.
All systems are actively monitored, and data is kept on file permanently. The reservoir holds 1.5
million gallons of water and has not dropped below the normal levels. This is due to the
implementation of the plan and the collaboration of the members of the Auburn and Peru
communities’ reduction in use. We appreciate all efforts for conserving usage until levels return to
normal.
Alan Slater
Water/Wastewater Manager
Daily Water Readings: May 7, 2025
