Aqua North Carolina imposes mandatory water restrictions in Alamance County

Aqua North Carolina has moved some Triad customers in Alamance County from drought warnings to mandatory limits, cutting off yard irrigation, pool refills and home car washes. Handwatering flowers, trees, shrubs and vegetable gardens is still allowed, but only with a hose or container between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. The shift lands as Mebane and Graham keep their own voluntary conservation steps in place, signaling that everyday water use is tightening across the county.

The mandatory rules apply to Aqua-served communities in the Triad, including Colfax, where drought conditions have reached the state’s D4 exceptional category. Aqua reviews drought conditions every week and sends customer alerts when restrictions change. For households on those lines, the immediate message is simple: the sprinkler stays off, the pool does not get topped off and the driveway wash is no longer allowed at home.

State drought officials sharpened the warning a day earlier, updating their advisory on June 18 to reflect conditions from the June 16 U.S. Drought Monitor. In D4 exceptional drought, the state urges water users to follow their Water Shortage Response Plans and prepare for the likelihood that community water systems will need rationing. North Carolina has had drought-response rules for extreme and exceptional drought in place since March 19, 2007.

Alamance County’s numbers show how deep the dry spell has become. Drought.gov says all 151,131 people in the county are affected, that May was the 18th driest on record, and that January through May 2026 ranked as the second driest year-to-date period in 132 years, with precipitation 8.47 inches below normal. That kind of deficit is why conservation has shifted from advice to enforcement in some places.

The pressure is especially visible around Graham-Mebane Lake, the shared supply that helps anchor the county’s municipal systems. The City of Mebane says the lake covers 718 acres and holds 2.8 billion gallons of storage, feeding a treatment plant with a 12 million gallon-a-day capacity that distributes about 3.8 million gallons a day. FOX8 reported that Graham canceled its Slice of Summer water festival, scaled back landscape watering and urged residents to cut back on yard watering, car washing and long showers as lake levels fell more than a foot.

The drought is also squeezing the county’s farms. Drought.gov says Alamance agriculture includes hay, soybean, corn, cattle and sheep, with drought exposure affecting 13,856 acres of hay, 3,527 acres of soybean, 3,203 acres of corn, 8,233 cattle and 976 sheep. Farmer Mike Ross said recent rain helped, but not enough to erase the shortage. In a county where water has to serve homes, farms and municipal systems at once, the restrictions are now part of daily life rather than a forecast warning.