Another summer has come and gone, but the bills for high water use during
this past drought continue. As the hot weather stayed with
us this year, increased pumpage due to irrigation strained our capacity to
produce. Pumpage rates topped out at over 20,000 gallons per minute during our
peak demand.
A typical sprinkler head uses in the neighborhood of four gallons per minute.
A typical homeowner who sprinkles for thirty minutes uses 120 gallons per head
every time the system is used. A typical system with twenty heads would use 2400
gallons each time it is used. If this system were programmed for every other
day, a homeowner could easily use 144,000 gallons during a billing cycle for
sprinkling alone! If the system were used for an hour, a whopping 288,000
gallons would be used!
As drought conditions continue, homeowners allow their sprinklers to stay on
for longer and longer periods of time. The resulting water use is quite large
with the resulting higher block rate dramatically increasing the amount billed.
We urge all consumers to closely monitor their sprinkler usage. Reading the
meter before and after a typical use will give you an idea of how much water
your particular system uses.
Residential consumers who have experienced a
financial hardship during the Covid-19 Pandemic are entitled to request
a payment deferral of their current water bill witout incurring any late fees or penalties.
Click here for more information.
On July 8, the Governor’s office announced that the New York State
Department of Health (NYSDOH) has proposed
new drinking water standards for the emerging contaminants
PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4-dioxane, which are polluting Long Island
groundwater from industrial chemicals that were used and disposed
here for decades.
Read More...
We have changed our Backflow Program submittal process. Read
about the new process here