7/1/2008 6:00:00 AM
Dolan Springs water problems have some taps running dry
H2NO
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KINGMAN - More than 300 households in Dolan Springs ran dry throughout the day Monday as the Mt. Tipton Water Company struggled to replenish its reserves after suffering two crippling system leaks last week.
Mt. Tipton Manager Judy Morgan said she hoped to have all customers back on-line by this morning, though that would depend on all customers' ability to conserve. For the first time this year, the water company has gone to Stage 4 or "black flag" status.
"It's controlled by the Arizona Corporation Commission," Morgan said. "It means that our water supply is at 25 percent capacity, and customers are under a mandatory restriction to employ water conservation measures."
Disconnections possible
This means residents on the Mt. Tipton system are being told to eschew such frivolities as washing cars or watering plants until supplies catch up to those neighbors who currently have no water at all. Unfortunately, according to Morgan, this has not yet been fully adopted.
"We have some people washing cars, watering trees, and you know, when we see that we can stop it; but if they do it when nobody's around ... ," she said. "If people don't comply with this, it will result in disconnection."
Dolan Springs' troubles began early last Friday, when a "T" line connecting a six-inch main to a four-inch main split down the middle at about 1:30 a.m. By the time Mt. Tipton had acquired a replacement part the following day, part of the six-inch main had split as well.
"That just depleted our water system and the storage system," Morgan said. "Once the storage system is down, it's hard to catch up when you're in triple-digit (temperatures)."
Overuse leaves some without
Once the breaks were fixed, Mt. Tipton briefly regained enough water to supply all of its customers Saturday. By Sunday night, however, overuse had caused those customers at higher altitudes to run out of water for the second time in three days.
As of Monday afternoon, those Dolan Springs customers between 13th Street and 17th Street remained without water, well over a third of Mt. Tipton's coverage area. Morgan noted many of these residents use evaporative coolers, or swamp coolers, to cool their homes in place of conventional air conditioners. Without water for the coolers, however, those residents have been enduring temperatures in excess of 100 degrees.
Byron Steward, the Mohave County Emergency Management coordinator, said the county has been monitoring the situation since last week and is prepared to set up cooling stations in the event the heat worsens. He said no heat complaints have been made to the local fire department.
"If it looks like it's going to be a situation that impacts health or safety, that's when we'll get involved," Steward said. "We haven't received anything yet that indicates it's a major problem."
Morgan said the primary issue with Mt. Tipton's water system is that it's antiquated, and without the funds to keep the system up to speed, more water main breaks are likely. She said Mt. Tipton has already applied for an emergency rate hike with the Arizona Corporation Commission, and once that's in place they plan to apply for a permanent hike.
"We need a better system than what we have," she said. "Because we're a community-owned operation here, we're not a public utility, so to speak. If we could become a water district, that'd make it a little bit easier."
Morgan said the Mt. Tipton Water Company's headquarters at the corner of Ironwood Drive and 11th Street is supplying customers with up to 50 gallons of emergency water, provided the customer brings their own containers. She said many volunteers and water haulers from Dolan Springs and the outside have also proven immensely helpful at getting additional water to the people who need it most.
"Volunteers have been absolutely wonderful," Morgan said.
Though the company was aiming to have as many customers back on-line as possible by Monday night, Morgan said it would likely take much longer for the company to fully replenish its water supplies.
"I would hope we would have everyone with water (today), if they conserve," she said. "As for back to Stage 1, with full capacity, I would say a good month before we get that far."
Even so, Morgan said Mt. Tipton's customers have been very understanding throughout the outage, and she wanted to thank them.
"They've been very kind to us," she said.
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Posted: Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Article comment by:
Ed Seggerson
lets Hope SoHi Water Dist. well hold up . Appo. 4 years ago we were hauling water. We have a couple of board members that are against SoHi piping in to pwd in Golden Valley as a backup for our old well
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