Burlington, NC Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

Article II of Chapter 40 lets Burlington's city council declare water conservation stages when reservoir levels drop, based on triggers the director of utilities and city manager monitor: abnormally dry weather, low lake levels, drought forecasts, treatment or equipment failures, excess demand, or a gubernatorial declaration. Section 40-13 lays out five escalating stages. Stage I, triggered around 75 percent reservoir capacity, asks customers to voluntarily limit lawn watering to when grass shows signs of withering. Stage II, triggered around 60 percent capacity, becomes mandatory: no person may water lawns, grass, trees, shrubbery, flowers, golf greens or vegetable gardens except between 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday and 7:00 a.m. to noon on Saturday, with a private well or captured rainwater the only exception.

Stage III, triggered around 45 percent capacity, tightens further: watering during that same Wednesday and Saturday window must use a hand-held hose with a shut-off nozzle, a container, or drip irrigation, and automatic sprinklers or unattended watering are banned outright. Stages IV and V, triggered at 30 percent and 15 percent capacity, go further still, eventually barring any outdoor water use except firefighting. Customers can apply to the city manager for a written license to use water outside the Stage II rules if they can show a water-use plan will still save at least 30 percent, and Lake Mackintosh and Lake Cammack, the city's own reservoirs, are the source the stage triggers are measured against under section 40-11's ban on removing raw water from city reservoirs.