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Town lifts mandatory water restrictions
After more than three months, Edward “Bo” Tucker, director of public works/utilities for the Town of Warrenton, has lifted mandatory restrictions on water usage.Nonetheless, Tucker stresses that “people still need to use water wisely.”
While the water supply has improved since the mandatory restriction went into affect, the town's water supply remains fragile and dependent on adequate precipitation this spring to restore the reservoirs to their full capacity.
Warrenton receives 90 percent of its water from two reservoirs on Cedar Run, one in Warrenton off Blackwell Road, and a second at Airlie. The town also has two wells, which Tucker says are not very productive and contribute only about five percent of the town's drinking water.
Because the area received record low precipitation last year, when rain did fall the ground soaked up every drop, compromising run-off to replenishment of the reservoirs.
“Now the ground is saturated,” Tucker said. “So with every rain, we’re getting the run-off. “The reservoirs are catching the additional flows.”
In addition to much-needed rain, some of the supply improvement can be attributed to resident and business efforts to conserve water, as well as the natural decrease in water use due to seasonal changes.
During the summer, the town was using 1.6 to 1.7 million gallons of water a day on average. Summer's end, in conjunction with the voluntary restriction, dropped that number to 1.3 million gallons per day. This winter, that number dropped again to 1.1 million.
During the mandatory restriction, town employees were responsible for handing out warnings to anyone who did not comply. Continued failure to comply with the mandate could result in citations and fines and could even result in offenders' water service being suspended. Fortunately, that was never necessary.
“We sent out a lot of warnings,” Tucker said, “but I don’t think there were any repeat offenders. Everyone really gave us their full cooperation.”
Water restriction implementation depends on the "yield of reservoir" — the amount of water that can be safely taken from the reservoirs. Voluntary water restriction is implemented when there are 150 days or less worth of water in the reservoir. Mandatory restriction kicks in when the level falls to 120 days of water in the reservoirs.
Before Tucker instituted the mandatory water restriction, the county’s reservoirs were at or below 50 percent of their capacity. Now, Tucker said, they are between 60 to 75 percent capacity, which, at the current water-use rate, equates to 170 days' supply.
“We’ve replenished our resources, but we still have a ways to go before we’re 100 percent,” Tucker said.
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