Auburn, AL Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

Auburn has no year-round watering-day schedule; the restriction in Article II of Chapter 10 only takes effect once the mayor declares a water shortage emergency under Sec. 10-18, based on her own judgment or a recommendation from the waterworks board that a shortage endangers public health, safety, or welfare. That declaration must be published once in a newspaper of general circulation, and the emergency continues until the mayor publishes a notice that it has ended. Once declared, Sec. 10-19 bans five specific uses of public-supply water: sprinkling, watering, or irrigating shrubbery, trees, lawns, grass, ground cover, plants, vines, and gardens; running any outdoor ornamental fountain; washing automobiles, trucks, trailers, mobile homes, campers, boats, or other mobile equipment; filling swimming pools; and washing sidewalks, driveways, porches, or exterior surfaces of buildings.

The rules apply to every user of the public water supply within the city and its police jurisdiction under Sec. 10-17. Sec. 10-21 lets the mayor, on the waterworks board's recommendation, lift restrictions for particular classes of users once conditions improve, without necessarily ending the emergency for everyone else.