BETHEL – Crews worked through the night to bring the town’s water treatment facility back on line Friday after flooding shut it down Wednesday night.
“We still have more parts to repair, but we got production back just before 9 a.m.,” said Water District Trustee John Head. “Things are looking up.”
By 10 a.m., plant operations had achieved 90 percent capacity, pumping 120 gallons per minute of treated water into its half-million gallon reservoir on Paradise Road.
But despite early optimism, Head stressed that water district customers should continue implementing water conservation measures, using it only for absolute needs.
Heavy rains Wednesday night into Thursday morning caused flooding at the district chlorinator building. That’s when the automatic shutdown of water treatment activities occurred. Sophisticated controls at the chlorinator assure that no untreated water has, or will, enter the distribution system, Head said.
By Friday morning, prior to operations being resumed, there were 300,000 gallons of treated water remaining of the half-million gallons stored in the reservoir Thursday.
“State Department of Human Services health officials came in this morning and they were astounded that we were back on line so quickly. They went away happy,” Head said.
“This weekend, we’ll monitor it very closely,” Head added.
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