PORT TOWNSEND — Heavy rain over the past several weeks prompted the City Council to rescind water restrictions.
“We are in pretty good shape,” Public Works Director Ken Clow said in a Monday presentation to the council.
“The rain’s been pretty steady, and these measures are no longer needed.”
The council unanimously approved ending the Stage 1 restrictions that were put into place Aug. 3. The restrictions provided for outdoor watering on alternate days.
Clow said Quilcene’s Lords Lake reservoir, which provides the city’s backup water supply, is at nearly 20 feet, a significant increase from its lowest level of 8 feet, 5 inches in November.
Clow said the level could be higher, but the river flow is so fast that the water cannot be rerouted into the reservoir.
The second and third stages of water restrictions were not necessary.
Stage 2 would have kicked in if Lords Lake’s level fell to 3 feet, and Stage 3 would have required water rationing.
Those measures would have required the Port Townsend Paper Co. mill — the biggest user of city water at 10 million to 15 million gallons daily and the county’s largest private employer with 298 workers — to shut down or vastly curtail its water use.
Clow said the city was currently using about 650,000 gallons a day, while mill spokesman Felix Vicino estimated the latest daily mill usage has been “10 million gallons and change.”
In an email, Vicino said during the shortage, mill crews used modified procedures to reduce water requirements as much as possible, having developed the procedures during previous water conservation periods.
“When extra conservation was required this summer, our people developed plans to use water cooling towers that would allow us to recycle water even more than we normally do,” Vicino said.
“This is an expensive way to reduce water, but it did allow us to save about 200 million gallons through the dry months and allowed us to keep our people working by stretching the water supply available from Lords Lake.”
Plans for 2016
City Manager David Timmons said the city will develop plans as to how to deal with a water shortage should it occur in 2016.
“The city’s water supply was never at risk,” he said.
“We will need to look at what kind of resources we will need.”
Timmons said the city would monitor the snowpack. The Olympic Mountains had no snowpack last summer.
Vicino said the mill would continue its conservation measures.
“Every year, we look for more process improvements and ways to permanently implement cost-effective conservation methods so that we can continue to shrink our water footprint,” he said.
After the vote, Mayor David King thanked the public and city staff for their cooperation and efforts during the shortage.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
