Amid worsening drought conditions, the Town of Purcellville on Friday enacted mandatory water restrictions as permitted in the town\u2019s code.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A change\u00a0in the county\u2019s status from\u00a0moderate to severe drought prompted the change, according to an announcement by Interim Town Manager Anthony Sabio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During mandatory restrictions, town\u00a0businesses may\u00a0only provide\u00a0water to customers\u00a0uponrequest, the use of decorative fountains,\u00a0watering\u00a0lawns\u00a0and\u00a0washing vehicles\u00a0are prohibited. In addition, the\u00a0use of fire hydrants\u00a0except for health and public safety\u00a0purposes\u00a0is banned.<\/p>\n
Violating the restrictions will result in at least a $100 fine for first-time offenses, $200 for second offenses and $300 for third offenses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the town code, emergency mandatory water restrictions are put in place when levels at Hirst Reservoir are 4.5 feet below normal, one or more wells are not functioning properly, storage\u00a0levels fall to\u00a070% or below of capacity, during a major waterline break, when demand is at least 90% of the system\u2019s safe yield on average for a week or when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s drought index indicates extreme drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Loudoun Now contacted Sabio for more information but did not receive a response.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Purcellville is the first of Loudoun\u2019s towns\u00a0to enact mandatory water conservation measures\u00a0this year.\u00a0Other Loudoun towns have reported stable well performance in their systems but continue to closely monitor the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During recent council meetings, Purcellville staff said 10 of the town’s wells have tested positive for\u00a0poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, or forever chemicals. When able, the town takes wells with the most contamination offline, staff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Loudoun has been experiencing drought\u2019s off and on again since 2023. After substantial rain in the spring, the county\u2019s drought status was lifted but by September the conditions returned with August ranking\u00a0as the seventh driest month over the past 131 years. \u00a0During December, only 1.3 inches of precipitation was recorded at the Dulles Airport weather station.<\/p>\n
According to data prepared for a Loudoun Water board of directors briefing this week, precipitation during 2025 tracked only slightly above the totals from 1969, which registered the lowest annual precipitation on record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, totals recorded at Dulles Airport were 12.9 inches below normal. Over the past two years, precipitation was 21.7 inches below normal. Since 2021, the deficit has totaled 40.7 inches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid worsening drought conditions, the Town of Purcellville on Friday enacted mandatory water restrictions as permitted in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,50,159,24111,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-504904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-towns","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115867936526867321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}