With high temperatures and little rain, Contoocook Village precinct residents and businesses have to limit their water usage as town officials have put an emergency water ban into effect.

Though Steve Clough, assistant director of Public Works, said the town’s water supply is not running short, a lack of rain and a bottleneck in the filtration system led to the ban, which was put into place June 1.

“We have plenty in our source, but we can only filter about 200 gallons a minute,” Clough said. “(The weekend of June 1), we were using a couple gallons a minute at night and during the day as high as 500 a minute. We couldn’t get our storage levels up enough. We have to keep drinking water and fire protection levels up.”

The ban means residents in the area, which includes Hopkinton High School and the town’s commercial area, will not be allowed outside water use until further notice.

“This means there will be no outside watering and no outside usage,” Clough said. “If you have plants you can bring watering cans outside.”

Clough said because of the hot weather, even with the ban the town is having a difficult time getting its tanks filled.

“If we do get our tanks back up and want to move forward, it’ll still be hard,” he said. “If we remove the ban now, it’ll be a short period of time before our tanks are back down again. What we really need is a steady rain, and that just isn’t coming.”

Town officials were scheduled to meet Tuesday, June 10, to decide how long to keep the ban, as well as address short and long-term plans.

Among the options for short-term solutions is the possibility of limited use, including a potential alternate-day usage system. Regardless of the solution for this summer, Clough said officials will also need to think of a long-term answer to the problem.

The water filtration plant used by the town was built in 1993, with increased storage built in 2002. Although the plant is scheduled for another upgrade within a few years, Clough said officials may need to look at moving up the date of the next phase.

“Within the last year or two, it’s been a mini-explosion of sprinkler systems, some of them larger ones,” said Clough. “The combination of all that is straining the system and we can’t keep up with it.”