Newark, OH Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

Section 1048.13 of the Newark Code of Ordinances, passed March 5, 1991 as Ord. 91-36, is the City's watering restriction. It switches on only during a "period of water emergency." A water emergency exists when the City has been ordered to restrict water use by the State or Federal Government or a regulatory agency, when the major water source cannot supply enough water to meet demand safely, when user demand exceeds the capability of the treatment facilities, when construction, maintenance or repair of the system requires limiting the flow, or in any emergency that threatens the health, safety or welfare of the system or its users.

The timing depends on who triggers it. A State, Federal or regulatory order starts the period when the order issues and runs until that order is rescinded. For the other four causes, the Board of Control of the City declares the emergency, it begins on the effective date of the declaration, and it continues until the declaration is rescinded.

Once a period of water emergency is on, subsection (b) forbids four uses of water from the City's distribution system: watering lawns or other plant life, filling swimming pools or replacing evaporated water, washing motor vehicles, recreational vehicles or boats, and hydrant flushing. Commercial motor vehicle washes are specifically exempted from the vehicle-washing ban. The lawn rule has a carve-out: shrubs, gardens and flowers can be watered with a hand bucket or sprinkling can. Subsection (c) exempts gardens grown for food production from subsection (b) altogether.

The Director of Public Service sets the operating rules for the Bureau of Water under Section 1048.11, and those rules bind water users inside and outside the corporate limits. Newark's stormwater code, Section 1054.16(l)(4), separately lists landscape irrigation and lawn watering among discharges that are exempt from the storm drain discharge ban.