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Despite the 10th-wettest spring on record in Massachusetts, the 24,000 residents of Reading were required to shut off their lawn irrigation systems from mid-August through October. Watering was restricted to early mornings and evenings, every other day—and then only with hoses. Those who live at odd-numbered addresses could water only on odd-numbered calendar days, while those across the street watered on even-numbered days. Violators faced a $300 fine.

Reading is one of 15 communities north of Boston that draw from the Ipswich River basin. The town’s nine wells pump the groundwater that feeds the river, which frequently runs dry during the summer. To relieve its water shortage, Reading recently received permission from the Massachusetts Water Resources Commission to buy Quabbin Reservoir water during the summer. But conservation groups are appealing the decision to grant the permit, arguing that buying water elsewhere will not solve Reading’s problems, or the Ipswich River’s.

“Reading’s wells will still run dry, just not as frequently,” says Kerry Mackin, executive director of the Ipswich River Watershed Association, which filed the suit in August along with the Conservation Law Foundation.

Conservationists say the Ipswich River is a poster child for water problems that are surprisingly common in the verdant Bay State, at least outside of the Quabbin-fed Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) district, which includes much of metropolitan Boston (See “Tapped Out,” CW, Fall 2000). State water officials call the river the most stressed waterway in the Commonwealth. In 2002, the US Geological Survey reported that up to half of the river went dry during four seasons between 1995 and 2002, and that native fish species were dying. In 2003, the Ipswich was named the third most endangered river in the US by American Rivers, a national conservation group.

“The Ipswich River is wounded and suffers severe injury almost every year,” said Hunt Durey, president of the Ipswich watershed association’s board of directors, at a conference in November. “This is not a doom-and-gloom exaggeration. This is the reality of the here and now. It’s the same reality looming on the horizon for many other river systems across the state.”

The 155-mile Ipswich River extends east from headwaters in Burlington and Wilmington and weaves through a dozen other communities before spilling into the Atlantic Ocean at Plum Island Sound; the river’s basin, or watershed, contains 22 communities, in whole or in part. Water pumped from the river serves 330,000 consumers, of whom 220,000 are located outside of the watershed. For example, Beverly, Danvers, and Salem are not completely inside the basin but rely on it for water, according to Duane LeVangie, a water management official for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

Watershed association director Mackin says that the river’s plight is due to the suburban sprawl that has dotted this growing region with thirsty lawns and wide swaths of impervious pavement, which keep rainwater from replenishing the groundwater. Between 1980 and 2000 the population of the watershed increased by 9 percent, but land taken up by residential property increased by 35 percent, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

At the November conference hosted by the Ipswich group —which drew conservationists, scientists, and public officials —participants charged that development and mismanagement of the water supply are to blame for the river’s dire condition.

“It’s deficit spending,” declared Mackin, likening the water supply to an unbalanced budget. “It’s like taking huge amounts of money out of your account just when you’ve received a notice that there’s no money left.”

Office of Commonwealth Development Secretary Doug Foy told the conference that smart-growth policies, combined with better water management, are the solution to the Ipswich’s problems. “We can get much more intelligent about the way we are growing this particular region,” said Foy. “We’re opposed to dumb growth. In the case of the Ipswich, dumb growth is deciding to export most of your wastewater somewhere else and drain your watershed.”

In November 2004 the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs published its first ever full-blown water policy, which stresses more effective management of existing resources. “The state’s water policy originated from two concerns: ensuring that communities have adequate water supplies for growth and protecting our streams and rivers,” says Kathy Baskin, water policy director for the state’s Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

Baskin says the water policy helps communities to protect and restore resources, increase conservation efforts, and work within their water “budgets.” It includes recommendations to replenish groundwater by trapping and recycling rainwater, and to reduce water usage through “low-impact” housing and commercial development strategies.

The latter may get its first test here soon. In 2004, the EPA granted $1.05 million in federal money to the Ipswich watershed for nine study projects, according to Sara Cohen, a water resources specialist at the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. An additional $90,000 was dangled in front of developers, promising assistance for a project involving a mixed-use subdivision that incorporates water conservation in its design. But there were few takers. Applications closed last September 19 with just two bidders, whose proposals are now under review.

In the meantime, an increasing number of communities in the Ipswich watershed are, like Reading, seeking permits to augment supply from outside sources. Reading’s permit makes the town permanently eligible to buy up to 219 million gallons of MWRA water per year between May 1 and October 31.

The Reading request was unusual, water commission officials say, because the town plans to use the MWRA water to limit the amount it taps from its main water supply. By contrast, the town of Bedford received a permit from the MWRA in 1992 because its existing water supply had been contaminated. And Stoughton received permission to use Quabbin water in 2002 to supply an assisted-care housing complex that was partially in neighboring Canton, which was already in the MWRA district. Neither of these permits was challenged, officials said.

“We are buying water from the MWRA for the sole purpose [of reducing] the amount of water we take out of the Ipswich River,” says Peter Hechenbleikner, Reading’s town manager for the past 19 years. “It is not to expand the total water available to the community.”

But environmentalists object to water transfers like Reading’s, seeing them as attempts by municipalities to buy their way out of proper water management. The Reading permit was applied for in 2001 under the 1983 Inter-basin Transfer Act, which allows sale of water between watersheds only as a last resort, if there is no viable existing water source and all conservation efforts had been exhausted. Once approved, says Mackin, the permit becomes permanent and would never have to be reviewed again. With its water supply supplemented by the MWRA, she says, Reading would be off the hook—and setting a bad precedent.

“The town of Reading ought to be demonstrating they are good as a steward of its own resources before it’s entitled to other water,” says Peter Shelley, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation.

But Hechenbleikner says the town is not letting up on any of its conservation efforts, which include rebates for low-flow toilets and washing machines and the relentless pursuit of leaks in the water distribution system. “Reading is working very hard to be the best stewards of the water supply that we can,” he says.

It will have to. According to the National Climatic Data Center, last year’s wet spring was followed by a relatively dry summer, then an October that was the state’s wettest month in the 105 years records have been kept. All the while, Reading was operating under water restrictions.

That, says Shelley, is because nature’s abundance, or lack thereof, will not determine the fate of the Ipswich River, and that of the communities that draw water from its source. “It’s a challenge for developers and municipalities to come to grips with living within a seemingly ample water budget,” he says. “We haven’t gotten it right between balancing demands and natural water availability.”