PORT TOWNSEND — City water reserves are running low, and Ian Jablonski, city water resource asset manager, eyes the skies and waits for autumn rain.
“Yes, we do need to replenish the reservoirs,” Jablonski said. “But luckily, we are getting to that time of year where we should start to get rain.
“So for now, we wait and see if we get rain.”
Jablonski doesn’t expect the city to run out of water.
“We started pulling earlier than normal this year, but there is no rationing going into effect,” he said. “We’ve been lower than this before, most recently back in 2002.
“Right now, water is still available to the people.”
Port Townsend, which draws from the Big Quilcene and Little Quilcene rivers for much of each year, stopped pulling water from the two rivers in early August when water levels fell below state imposed in-stream flow guidelines.
In most years, the city had not switched to reserve water supply until late August or early September.
As of Monday, the Big Quilcene River’s flow had not yet risen back above 27 cubic feet per second below the city’s diversion.
Since August, the city has been tapping water from Lords Lake, the first of two reservoirs used as reserves during dry months.
“Rainfall last week (0.3 inches) had virtually no impact on stream flows,” Jablonski said in a letter to to City Manager David Timmons, Public Works Director Ken Clow and Public Works Water Manager Bob LaCroix on Monday,
“As of today, there is approximately 170 million gallons of water remaining in Lords Lake reservoir and another 30 to 40 million gallons below the outlet tower.”
Amount of reserves
Jablonski said that amount of water means the city has about three weeks of water left in the Lords Lake reservoir.
Jablonski said that, without substantial rain replenishing the reservoirs and rivers in the next few weeks, the city will have to tap into its second reserve, City Lake.
“City Lake is full at 120 million gallons,” Jablonski said. “So, we have two weeks left in that as well.”
The major user of the city’s water supply is Port Townsend Paper Corp.
While city residents use about 1 million gallons of water per day, the mill uses more than 14 million gallons daily.
Water use down
Jablonski said currently consumption from both user bases is down.
“Last week, city use declined 18 percent from the previous week, averaging 0.91 million gallons per day,” he said.
“Mill use declined 15 percent from the previous week, averaging 9.5 [million gallons per day].
“Mill water use should remain lower than average this week, as they take equipment down for annual maintenance.”
Jablonski said that a broken pipe discovered in the system last week along state Highway 20 was repaired on Friday.
He did not know how much water was lost.
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.
