JOYCE — Crescent Water Association customers were asked to conserve water after heavy rains broke up a massive logjam near the headwaters of the Lyre River and blew out a water intake, district Manager Connie Beauvais said.
The Joyce-area water district posted a Monday notice asking customers to limit water consumption to drinking, washing hands, cooking and flushing the toilet.
“We have been working really hard to not have to do a boil-water advisory,” Beauvais said in a Tuesday interview. “At this moment, we are sending water into the system, but it’s going to be a couple hours before there is any water going to the tanks in the middle of the system.”
Heavy rain over the weekend caused Lake Crescent to rise and break a decades-old logjam at the outflow of the lake where the Lyre River begins.
The association’s surface water intake is about a quarter-mile downstream from the logjam.
“It finally blew out, and it had a whole bunch of silt and dirt built up in it and behind it over all those years,” Beauvais said.
The Crescent Water Association monitors the Lyre River river during storms and shuts off the intake when the turbidity gets too high.
A 460,000-gallon, multi-tank reserve is used when the water treatment plant is closed during storms.
Beauvais said she switched off the intake during a 12-hour shift Saturday.
Crews were preparing to reopen the water treatment plant Monday when the logjam gave way, sending a surge of muddy water downstream.
“The guys heard a sudden noise and saw a couple of trees coming down the river, and there was a whole log jam right behind those trees,” Beauvais said.
The Lyre River had cut a 15-foot-deep channel below the logjam site. Piles of silt sounded like thunder as they fell into the river, Beauvais said.
Beauvais said the intake will need to be moved this summer because the channel had migrated.
Beavais is also a Port of Port Angeles commissioner.
Clallam County Commissioner Bill Peach referenced the storm damage in a Tuesday business meeting.
“I’m looking forward to just inquiring as to what we can do at the county level to support reestablishing that,” Peach said of the Crescent Water Association system.
Commissioner Mark Ozias, board chairman, said the county’s Emergency Management division was already working with the water association.
“Certainly the commissioners office stands by, ready to provide whatever assistance we’re able to,” Ozias said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
