The Suffolk County Water Authority is urging all of its customers to reduce their water usage, which has reached “dangerously high levels” due to hot, dry weather.
The SCWA public water system — which services areas surrounding Riverhead Town, including Flanders and Southold — has experienced “several consecutive weeks of high water use during the overnight hours and early morning,” the water authority said in a press release last week. Storage tanks in several areas are taking longer to recover, pushing the system to its limits and dropping water pressures, the authority said.
“If this continues, we’ll see more drops in water pressure, and our ability to respond to emergencies like fires will be at risk,” SCWA Chairman Charlie Lefkowitz said in a statement.
The authority, which initially issued a Stage 1 Water Alert on July 23, is asking customers to refrain from all lawn watering until further notice. Necessary lawn watering must follow the odd-even lawn watering schedule — where odd-numbered street addresses water only on odd-numbered calendar days, and even-numbered addresses on even-numbered days, according to the SCWA. No lawn watering should be done between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., the authority said.
The long-term forecast continues to call for hot, dry conditions, and water demand is expected to remain high unless customers take the restrictions seriously, the SCWA said.
In Riverhead Town, where public water is provided by the Riverhead Water District, there is currently no water emergency and no use restrictions. Customers, however, should still implement conservation measures such as the odd-even watering schedule, Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini said Monday.
“We always want people to be cognizant of their water usage and not use too much,” Mancini said, noting that the system is “one failure away from being in an emergency.”
“But right now, knock on wood, we’re doing just fine,” he said.
Mancini said the water district will be “much stronger” next summer. The completion of a new 2.5 million gallon ground storage tank in Wading River, and the reconstruction of wells in Riverhead and Calverton, will increase pumping capacity, he said.
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