Riverhead Water District, coping with record consumption levels, puts fire departments on alert

The Riverhead Water District is working overtime — quite literally — to keep water flowing to your home faucets and, even more importantly, to fire hydrants around town.

The district has asked local fire departments to respond to any overnight fire calls with their tankers — just in case the district can’t produce enough water pressure to fight a fire, Conklin said.

“August was a record month,” Riverhead Water District Superintendent Mark Conklin said Tuesday.

“We pumped 517 million gallons in August, topping our old record of 511 million gallons in the summer of 2010.”

Lack of rain and warm weather has increased demand on the municipal water system, Conklin said.

District wells are pumping furiously every day to fill the district’s tanks with water. Then at 3 a.m., irrigation systems kick on, and the water tanks begin to drain. And they drain fast.

“You can see it on our charts. You can see what happens at 3 a.m. It drops like a rock,” Conklin said.

“When you have communities with 10 or 12 inch-and-a-half inch service lines that each pump 30 or 40 gallons per minute, that’s 300 to 400 gallons per minute — for one community,” Conklin said. “Multiply that by five or six, and you see what I’m talking about.”

By 8 a.m., Conklin said, the tanks are drained.

“Then we spend the day filling them up again, only to repeat the process the next day,” he said.

“These places are irrigating six days a week.”

Add to that demand homeowners’ irrigation systems, some golf courses and other commercial properties (Conklin said nearly every new shopping center on Route 58 has its own well for irrigation purposes) and the demand is such that the district can just barely keep up. If a motor goes out or some other malfunction occurs, the district has a big problem.

“We’ve been pretty lucky so far,” Conklin said.

Every one of the district’s wells — except one in Calverton, which is reserved for emergencies only — is going all day every day, the superintendent said.

“Being in the fire service all my life, that’s what really worries me — fire,” Conklin said. “Some of the pressure readings we have at 4 or 5 a.m. are just not enough.”

Conklin said he plans to meet with the operators of the condominium communities this winter to discuss sensible voluntary restraints.

“But I think what’s really needed is legislation” restricting consumption by commercial users, he said. Conklin plans to discuss that with the town board as well.

For now, though, he’s asking residents to do their part by conserving water consumption. “Remember, lawns require just an inch of water per week,” he said. Also, watering outside of the 2 to 8 a.m. time period would be very helpful.