Jasper loosens water restrictions for now
Under advisement of Water and Gas Manager Mike Oeding, the City of Jasper loosened some of the water restrictions it put in place originally on June 29.
On Tuesday morning, the mayor’s office issued the amendments to the original declaration. The amendments include extending the hours of watering of landscaping, gardens and lawns to 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. and allowing residents to wash vehicles.
The odd and even day schedule remains in effect and the city is asking residents to be conscientious of their water usage and to wash vehicles in their yards to avoid wasting the runoff in the city storm water system.
As a reminder, all even addresses are allowed to do these activities on even days of the month; all odd addresses are on odd days of the month.
The city is still prohibiting the washing of any exterior surfaces of a home or business. These surfaces include driveways, walls and sidewalks.
Monday evening, Oeding told the Utility Service Board the mandatory restrictions have reduced the city’s usage by between 300,000 to 500,000 gallons a day. “Everybody is doing a really good job at keeping the usage low. So we can relax some of the restrictions,” Oeding said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. It is a long hard dry forecast and we’re not sure about river levels so were checking them daily.”
Currently the Patoka Lake dam is releasing water at the rate of 25 cubic feet per second. Last week, Oeding told the Common Council he wanted to monitor the dam in Dubois over the weekend to determine the city’s next action in regards to water. Oeding told the Utility Service Board that water was still coming over the Dubois dam as of Monday. Because of this he recommended the city relieve some of the mandatory water restrictions.
But Oeding is still concerned about where the water upstream is going. He told the board the investigation is in the hands of the state now, but he will continue to monitor the flow to the Jasper pool.
Although heavy rain fell around the area on Sunday and Monday, Oeding says it wasn’t enough to make a difference. “It’s evaporating before it runs off into any of the streams or the river.”
In fact the water level of Jasper’s pool has actually gone down a bit according to Oeding, but he says the city can call DNR to release more water if they see it is necessary.
The low water that precipitated the June 29 decision to restrict water usage is unprecedented in the city’s history. Patoka Lake dam is releasing water at the same rate it historically does for this time of year. The loss of water in the Jasper pool surprised the city since it has not been a problem in the past.
Once the biomass conversion takes place at the Jasper Power Plant, it is expected to use around 400,000 gallons of water during its daily operation. Oeding stated if the plant had been using city water, it would have only served to quicken the city’s emergency status. According to Oeding the problem is the flow of the river not the supply from the city. “We would have noticed the problem sooner and we would have had them (Jasper Clean Energy) shut down for a bit,” Oeding explained. “It’s not a capacity problem; it’s a river flow problem. This thing snuck up and bit us on the behind quicker than we could react to it. Then it took awhile to trickle down the river. The biomass plant wouldn’t have affected anything.”
So the biomass plant will quicken the emergency status yet "not affect anything"? Yet another double statement. It certainly won't affect anything if it isn't running. That would be good for the ozone and particulate status as well. Anyone who can add and subtract can see that 400000 gallons of water per day will have an effect on everyone else especially in a drought situation.
I'd be willing to bet he knows what hes talking about more than you do. I bet most of the water is used for cooling and then goes right back into the river. We get way more pollution from Rockport than we will from buring natural gas and a little bit of grass.
No doubt he knows more but should be more objective as well. We at Healthy Dubois County questioned more than a year ago whether there was enough water IN THE RIVER and whether that had been checked out. Whether the water used in the power plant makes its way back to the river is a separate issue (but important as to its effect because it will be warmer coming out of the plant and the effect on fish in the river has not been addressed either). Perhaps in a subsequent article we will find out how the city plans to address the "river flow" problem and whether or not they have the authority in the lease to "shut down" the plant "for a bit. . ." as it will be a private enterprise tied to the grid, no longer a department of the city and under their direct control. We were as usual never given a direct answer ONE YEAR AGO as to whether the city had even LOOKED into the river flow issue and ironically it is the very issue that "bit them in the behind quicker than they could react to it." Yes, they know more, and as usual, the information is not available to the public. The pollution from the existing coal plants will not go away just so this plant can be built and this plant's capacity will not make much of a dent in the regional supply.
Do you realize that is was the city's arrogance that made the river level so low? If they would have let the core of engineers do their jobs there would not have been a problem, but the city doesn't want to deal with the life of being a rivertown. I don't even see why Jasper is allowed to use river water. Everyone else had to hook up to the lake and isn't even allowed to draw from the river.