Cheney holds water meeting

The city of Cheney wants to hear from residents on how to reduce the impacts of demand on the city’s potable water supply system.

A public meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, May 2, at 5 p.m. at the Wren Pierson Community Center to present information about Cheney’s water supply and discuss conservation measures residents and businesses can take. According to a city press release, “water systems with 1,000 or more connections are required to establish water use efficiency goals in accordance with the state’s Water Use Efficiency Rule.”

One issue to be discussed is the amount of water used by the average household for daily purposes such as drinking, cooking, bathing and washing versus the demands on the system when irrigation during spring and summer months is added into the mix. According to the release, water supply demands during the irrigation season increase 2.8 times over out of season demands.

Public Works Director Todd Ableman said it’s hard to determine irrigation use in the city because it’s spread out not only among residences but also large commercial users such as the school district and businesses along with irrigating of green spaces such as parks. Ableman said in general, out of all water connections, about 28 percent are commercial, 40 percent are single-family residences and 32 percent are multifamily.

“The multifamily is lower because they generally don’t have a lot of lawn (to irrigate),” Ableman said.

Cheney sold 503 million gallons of water in 2016, which averages to 1.3 million gallons used per day. Ableman said that averages to 902 gallons per minute (gpm), an average that viewed more specifically, drops to around 700 gpm during the winter.

Once warmer weather arrives, and especially hot stretches during the summer, that usage jumps to over 2,000 gpm.

“Everybody’s putting more water on because their lawns are drying up,” Ableman said.

The city brings on more pumps to handle the increased demand, but eventually the hot weather causes over-pumping of the system, in which case that demand forces dipping into city storage capacity. irrigation demand caused by hot weather in June 2014 dropped the levels in the city’s reservoirs from 24 feet to a dangerously low 10 feet, forcing Cheney to implement water restrictions to restore levels.

The city implemented an irrigation schedule to prevent a similar situation from occurring, and Ableman said residents have done a great job adhering to the plan to help with conservation measures.

At the May 2 meeting, city officials will discuss these measures along with other conservation approaches such as using low-flow fixture devices, upgrades to irrigation systems, addressing the question “how much irrigating is enough?” and possible implementation of seasonal rates.

The key to rate system, according to the press release, is creating a structure that meets basic household demands while at the same time providing enough water so that “no one will have to forego a green yard and a colorful garden.”

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.