The City of Rawlins is asking for help from everyone in our community. We are facing unprecedented issues with water this year and it is imperative that we work together as a community to ensure adequate water for drinking, fire protection and watering of lawns and parks.
A multitude of factors have created this situation:
* Flows from the springs are down by 47%. We are relying heavily on reservoir water which requires significantly more filtration (Filters must be cleaned every 3-4.5 hours instead of 900 hours). This is due to aging infrastructure and our dry year.
* Filtration capacity is down to 75% at the water treatment plant due to valve and equipment failures.
* Water usage hit summer levels (3-3.5 million gallons/day) two months earlier than usual, depleting our reservoirs much more quickly than normal.
Mark Carney, Water & Sewer Superintendent for Public Works said “This is a critical crossroads for our community. If, working together as community, we can cut our watering for lawns and gardens in half, we will extend the current life of our reservoirs by about 50 days. This would help get us through this hot, dry summer without a water shortage. Mechanical failure, increased demand, and a more turbid water source have made it important that we all work together to conserve water.”
Additionally, attached to this letter is our official exceedance letter as required by the EPA. Due to the reservoir water being more turbid (cloudy), we exceeded the turbidity requirements for the month of May. You do not need to boil your water and we do not know of any contamination. We have also increased our choline residual to ensure adequate disinfection. Please see the linked letter here or below for more information. There are many steps which can be taken to reduce household watering while keeping grass and plants healthy. By practicing conservation, we can maintain an adequate water supply for household use and fire protection.
* Deep and less frequent watering leads to stronger turf that is more resilient. Do not use more water than your grass needs.
* Water your lawn in the evening or in the early morning to avoid evaporation. Do not water between 10am and 6pm. Be careful to water only the lawn and not the sidewalk or street.
* Do not water on Sundays. With our reduced staff on the weekends, the clean water amount stored in the tanks drops over the weekend and it is difficult to meet demand.
* Check household faucets for leaks. 15 drips per minute add up to almost 3 gallons of water wasted daily.
* Use a broom to sweep your driveway, garage, or sidewalk. Use a bucket of water to wash your bike or the family car and rinse quickly with a hose.
The City of Rawlins will not water any parks until at least June 28th to help the tanks refill, and then will keep the watering to the bare minimum to do our part. We have also taken many measures to overcome these issues.
* Staff is working around the clock to keep our filters clean and water storage at the correct levels, now including staff on overnight shifts.
* Staff increased the chlorine residual to 2.5-3 (usually 1.0) whenever our NTU is above 1.0.
* Staff treated Peaking reservoir to eliminate algae growth, which also reduces the shrimp population.
* Constantly working to make repairs and improvements at the water treatment plant, reservoirs, wells, and springs.
* Regarding the infrastructure from the springs to the water treatment plant, City Council passed the Source Water Protection Plan and are currently seeking funding. For more info, visit www.rawlinswy.org/watertreatment
* We reduced watering to the parks and asked citizens to use smart watering practices on June 3rd through our website (rawlinswy.org) and Facebook, with additional coverage by Bigfoot 99.
For more information, please contact Mira Miller, City of Rawlins Community Relations Coordinator, at 307-328-4500 ext. 1022.
