Water restrictions in Charleston, WV — also called the watering schedule, outdoor irrigation rules, or drought ordinance — set which days and hours you can run sprinklers or irrigation.
Kanawha County is water-abundant, with about 44 inches of rain a year, so standing lawn-watering bans are rare. Limits come from the utility, West Virginia American Water, not the county, and usually only during main breaks or drought.
West Virginia's humid Appalachian climate leaves Kanawha County with ample water, and neither the county nor Charleston imposes routine sprinkling schedules. Most Charleston, South Charleston, St. Albans, and Dunbar households buy water from West Virginia American Water, which can call voluntary conservation during a drought or major main break. The defining local water story is not scarcity but quality: the January 2014 Freedom Industries spill of crude MCHM into the Elk River, just above the utility's Kanawha Valley intake, put a do-not-use order on roughly 300,000 people and drove the state's Aboveground Storage Tank Act and source-water protection planning. Well owners on the ridges manage their own supply.
There is no county watering ordinance to violate. If West Virginia American Water declares a mandatory restriction during an emergency, ignoring it can bring utility penalties or service limits under its tariff.
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