Condition yellow

While conservation efforts have led to a restoration of levels in the city’s five-reservoir system, Cheney officials are cautioning residents from a false belief they are out of the woods when it comes to water supply over the remainder of the summer.

The city is still maintaining a water usage status of yellow, even with cooler temperatures forecast over the coming weekend. Under a yellow status, residents and businesses are advised to water on odd/even days — odd days if location’s street address ends in an odd number and even if it ends in an ever number — and to limit watering of lawns to no more than 1 inch per week, as measured by a rain gauge or that good old spare tuna can you have lying around.

Also under yellow conditions, watering should only take place during the “cool” part of the day from 10 p.m. – 8 a.m., with manual watering allowed from 8 p.m. – 8 a.m. for those without automatic sprinkler systems. Watering of gardens and flowerbeds is allowed, but water users are encouraged to install or use drip systems in these locations.

A number of large impacts including a long stretch of unseasonably hot temperatures dropped the water levels in the city’s reservoirs to about 12 feet around mid-June, forcing severe, red condition water restrictions from June 25 through July 2. Those restrictions helped bring the city’s water levels back up to normal.

In a July 8 email, Cheney’s water resource manager, Dan Ferguson, said levels had been restored to a more normal 28-29-foot top off level, with daily demands dropping levels to 25 feet at night. The irrigation measures allow the city’s pumps to replenish the reservoirs overnight.

“So far, we are able to keep up with demand and maintain adequate levels,” Ferguson said.

On Tuesday, July 14, City Administrator Mark Schuller said they were beginning to see those levels drop down to 24-26 feet as some water users were irrigating “hard” even while adhering to the odd/even schedule.

“We’re starting to see a slight, incremental decrease, so we’re keeping our eyes on it,” he said, adding the city hopes the forecasted cooler temperatures will lead to a further decrease in irrigation.

And while irrigation of most city parks and Cheney School District facilities has been greatly curtailed, irrigation is ongoing at Cheney’s Sutton, Moos and Salnave parks. Those parks are served by an irrigation only pipeline from Well No. 4, and are not tied into the rest of the city’s 4.3 million gallon potable water supply.

Earlier this week, city crews were dealing with a water main leak in the alleyway near the former location of the Eastern Washington University Surplus store downtown. Public Works Director Todd Ableman said the leak was discovered over the weekend and crews were waiting on Avista to confirm the location of a natural gas line that runs through the alley, something that finally took place late Tuesday afternoon.

The line that is leaking is likely an old, cast iron 8-inch service line, but could potentially be a nearby main line, Ableman said. The city has been replacing these old cast iron or galvanized steel pipes with PVC pipe over the last 20-30 years, Ableman added, and if it’s a service line it could be it’s simply cracked through rot over the years.

“We just don’t know what the cause is right now,” he said.

Ableman anticipated city crews should be able to get at the line to fix the leak by Wednesday, July 15. Until they can get to the line itself, the leakage rate remains unknown.

“Just from looking at it, the way it’s running, I’d say it’s probably a good 20 gallons a minute,” Ableman said.

Besides the downtown leak, city crews were busy elsewhere with additional leaks, including one at Gary Street and Presley Drive that was oozing between 10-15 gallons a minute, Cheney’s public works operations supervisor, Don Mangus, said.

“The system is getting old,” Mangus added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].