City Initiates 'Water Watch', Asks For Voluntary Reduction Of Water Usage

The City of Ulysses is asking for local residents to voluntarily help out with a water issue.

"We initiated a water watch to conserve water," explained Adam Falas, City of Ulysses Water Superintendent. "We lost a pump at our main pumping station."

Part of the water watch is a request for local residents - just in case.

"This is for voluntary reductions - it  is not a mandatory request," Falas said. "There is no danger of running out of water at this time. We have plenty of water and we can still pump plenty of water, but the fact of the matter is, we lost a pump that reduces our pumping capacity per day. We went  to a water watch just in case."

Falas said the pump is in the process of being repaired.

"It is being repaired at the moment - it is being redone," he said. "They don't make those any more, so it is being rebuilt as we speak."

The pump was sent to Kenny Martin with Martin's Well Service.

"He is our service guy for the wells," Falas said. "We sent it in to be rebuilt. We use him (Martin) to order and have those pump bowls rebuilt. He's not doing it himself. He sent it to someone else and they are getting it done. They will get it back to us as soon as possible."

According to Falas, Martin informed him the company rebuilding the pump said the repairs would take less than two weeks.

"So, we expect around two weeks," Falas said. "The last time that pump bowl was replaced was 1995. It's been 30 years. These things last 30 to 40 to 50 years, depending how much use they get. That's one of the oldest ones and you really don't have any way of knowing when it's going to go out. You just all of a sudden lose pumping capacity."

Falas said the pump began losing pumping capacity on Friday, August 8.

"We were just getting off work when it happened," he said. "I always look at our SCADA system before I leave and noticed we had lost some pumping capacity."

Residents will most likely not notice a difference at this time.

"We are still pumping," Falas said. "Of course, the rain and lower temperature helped today (Monday). Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are our heaviest loads. Everybody wants to run their systems that day in the mornings."

Two local entities have already taken steps to do their part.

"I have spoken with the school system and the recreation commission and they have kind of adjusted their sprinkling times and days to where it will spread it out more evenly, so that makes it a lot easier for us to keep up," Falas said. "They  are excellent people to work with and they understand what is going on."

The water watch is just to inform the public as to what is going on and ask for their cooperation.

"It's just to make the public aware and ask for voluntary reductions," Falas said. "We aren't asking for anything that will change lives or anything like that. It's just to be cautious and try not to waste water unnecessarily. For instance, don't water the gutter if you can help it. There is no danger of running our of water at this time. The water watch will probably last about two weeks, before we get the pump back."

Falas has been with City of Ulysses for 29 years.