Water use smashes record
Excessive sprinkling creates crisis
By John Stefans
|
The problem wasn't that the aquifer was running dry. "We have lots of water in the ground," said water district superintendent Gary Pendzick. Instead, he said, increased residential irrigation had almost drained the district's water tanks, making it difficult to fight fires should they break out. And this prompted Mr. Pendzick to issue an urgent appeal over local radio and television stations for people to turn off their sprinklers and hoses, or at least cut down on their use.
"On Saturday, we broke every record in the book," Mr. Pendzick said. "We didn't just break it. We blasted through it."
|
"We nearly pumped that much water again on Sunday and Monday," he said. "We were having difficulty keeping our tanks full -- and that's bad."
By Tuesday morning, the crisis had passed and Mr. Pendzick rescinded his appeal, but he continued his call for conservation, particularly since high temperatures are expected to be around for awhile, with little rain in sight.
Mr. Pendzick said he surmised that homeowners looked at their crispy grass, bushes and flower gardens and decided to water them more than they usually do. He said he suspects some residents may have even pushed a button to override their sprinkler timers, normally set for nighttime, so they could water during the day. But, he said, irrigating during the day, especially when it's extremely hot, is a waste of time.
"Almost 90 percent of the water is evaporated before it even hits the ground," he said. "But high heat has an almost psychological effect. Watering makes people feel good."
(Tom Kowalsick, senior horticulture consultant with Cornell Cooperate Extension, agrees that watering lawns during the day is of little benefit and may even do harm by encouraging various diseases. He recommends setting sprinklers to go on at 3 or 4 a.m. He said it takes only an inch of water a week to feed a lawn.)
The weekend's water-reserve crisis led Councilwoman Barbara Blass to suggest that the Town Board quickly consider a change in Town Code that would make conservation mandatory in times of emergencies, saying that she would bring the issue up at today's work session.
She pointed out that a section of the current code, Chapter 105-23, reads: "The right is reserved for the Town Board to limit the use of water for human consumption or for sanitary purposes." But it says nothing about limiting the use of town water for residential irrigation, she said. All irrigation of local farms, Ms. Blass noted, is done with well water, so it's not a concern.
"There should be a mechanism in place so we can require residential conservation in times of crisis and be able to deal with violators," she said.
Ms. Blass also said that quick attention should be paid to making mandatory odd and even day watering, based on a resident's street address. It's a proposal that Mr. Pendzick has been pushing, but thus far it's gone nowhere.
He pointed out, however, that some senior citizen communities have imposed odd/even day watering on their own through their homeowner associations. Some homeowner associations, he said, are also considering having wells drilled in their communities to provide water for irrigation only, thus reducing the call on town water.
