By DAVE SCHULTZ
It’s a fact of life — the warmer the temperature is, the more water is used. People take more showers, they wash their cars more often, and — particularly this year, in this area — they water their lawns and gardens more often.
Todd Shady, superintendent of the Bluffton water filtration plant, is aware of all of that, but he’s mostly been able to watch the world go by. He’s seen no problems, except for more gallons of water coming into and out of the plant.
First of all, the new facility has handled the extra demand like a champ.
That comes even through the plant pumped out more water between noon Wednesday and noon Thursday — the way the facility’s usage is measured — than it has in any 24-hour period since the plant went online last year. That amount was 1.84 million gallons of water.
The plant’s usage during June, spurred by several days with high temperatures in the 90s — has been an average of 1.53 million gallons per day through the first 29 days of the month. Shady calculated the amount during an interview at the plant Thursday afternoon.
The temperatures went above 90 starting in the middle of the month, and the city’s water usage rose proportionately. Nevertheless, Shady said, the city’s in good shape.
The water usage total also includes several water main breaks, a casualty of current conditions. There’s ways to truly calculate how much water the city may have lost during those breaks.
Shady notes that the plant is running only 18 hours a day, meaning its pumps are not functional for six hours. Also, the pumps aren’t running at full capacity when they’re on; Shady says they’re going at about 89 percent.
Some relief could be in the offing over the next few days, as there is a chance of showers every day for the next week. As things stand now, however, the highest percentage of rain is 50 percent a few times, particularly in the middle of next week. Some of the rain chances could come in thunderstorms, according to the forecast from the National Weather Service office for northern Indiana in North Webster.
The Fort Wayne area climatological summary for June 2022 thus far shows the area at 3.26 inches of rain so far in June. The average amount of rainfall for this time is 4.35, the NWS said.
daves@news-banner.com
