City urges water conservation
Children wanting to beat the heat by making a dash to the splash pad at Old City Park in Pilot Point will have to wait until further notice.
The city implemented Stage II voluntary water conservation Tuesday because of a well that went out and needed repair. The well is near Wilson and Harrison streets, northwest of Massey Stadium, and it went down Monday. The well is expected to be offline until mid-next week.
Stage II affects mainly watering of lawns and involves the entire city, said Mario Cisneros, public works director. Because the conservation stage is voluntary, no one will receive tickets for non-compliance, City Manager Alan Guard said. Signs about the conservation will be placed around town to notify people about the restrictions.
A lightning strike or series of strikes caused the damage to the well. The lightning could have hit the well weeks ago, and the damage finally caused it to cease working. Some research can be done for when lightning strikes occurred in June.
Strittmatter Irrigation crews pulled the pump out of the well Tuesday morning.
“What they’ll do is they’ll send the pump out to get it checked and see if it can be fixed or we’ll go with a new one; most likely, we’re going to go with a new one,” Cisneros said. “That’s what we always do.”
Sometimes the company will have a pump in stock. If not, the pump – a Franklin Well Pump – will have to be ordered. The new pump was to be installed Thursday and then the well has to be flushed and a water sample has to acquired, Cisneros said.
The sample has to be taken to a lab for a test to ensure the water is safe, he said.
“Hopefully, we can have [it] running back Wednesday of next week,” he said.
The reason for the water rationing occurred because of a water leak Monday on Main Street.
“That hurt us quite a bit,” Cisneros said.
Repairs were made to the line.
The city’s Stage II water conservation plan calls for landscape watering to be limited to the hours of 7-9 a.m. and 7-10 p.m. Watering on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday is discouraged. The plan also sets the following schedule for outdoors irrigation:
•Monday: Properties with odd-numbered addresses north of Main Street, including the north side of Main.
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Tuesday: Properties with odd-numbered addresses south of Main Street, including the south side of Main.
•Thursday: Properties with even-numbered addresses north of Main Street, including the north side of Main.
•Friday: Properties with even-numbered addresses south of Main Street, including the south side of Main.
Exceptions any day of the week are made to foundations and new plantings of shrubs and trees, which may be watered by handheld hose or soaker hose for up to two hours on any day, during specified hours.
