Columbia Water and Light is asking its customers to cut down on their water use between now and 6 o’ clock Saturday morning.
Spokesperson Connie Kacprowicz says equipment in one of the water softening basins at the water treatment plant broke, so less water will be processed until the equipment is fixed, hopefully before the end of the day.
“So we’re not able to pump as much water as we have been. We should be OK, like I said, but its’ just more of a precaution and really just so we don’t deplete our storage facilities because it’s been so dry. If we were to have a large fire, we want to make sure that we have enough water in storage to fight fires,” Kacprowicz said.
Kacprowicz says the plant can still pump almost 24 million gallons a day, and that on Tuesday Columbia residents used 23 million gallons. So it’s not an emergency, but she says the Department would appreciate any customers voluntarily cutting down on use for irrigation or any other unnecessary water use.