Staff report
The city of Salisbury lifted its mandatory water conservation measures Monday morning and declared the Yadkin River pump station fully operational.
The Level II mandatory conservation measures were initiated last Thursday afternoon after the pump station, which sends water from the Yadkin River to reservoirs at Ellis Crossroads, lost its power and needed extensive repairs.
Heavy winds last Wednesday knocked out the Duke Energy transformer on site and the city’s electrical equipment.
At roughly 10:30 Sunday night, Duke Energy and Salisbury-Rowan Utilities restarted the electrical system, and it operated without issue through the night. The pump station can send 12 million gallons of water a day to the reservoir.
“We plan to keep the emergency diesel pumps on site for several days in the event any unforeseen electrical issues arise,” SRU Director Jim Behmer said Monday. “We are currently operating at normal conditions and are in the process of contacting our south Rowan client communities to notify them that they are now able to increase their demand back to 670,000 gallons per day.”
Behmer said the city’s large reservoir water level was at 24 feet high, representing 18 million to 20 million gallons of raw water storage.
“We would like to take this opportunity to especially thank the town of China Grove, city of Kannapolis, and the town of Landis for their quick response to our request for water conservation,” Behmer said. “In addition, SRU offers their appreciation to Randy Welch, Bill Hall and the Duke Energy Response Team for their assistance and cooperation.
“We are also extremely grateful to our city employees for their strong support.”
Salisbury-Rowan Utilities serves residential and business customers in Salisbury, Rockwell, Spencer, East Spencer and Granite Quarry with additional water supply support to other local client communities and industries.
“With the assistance of our citizens and their dedicated conservation efforts,” City Manager David Treme said, “we were able to maintain our reservoir level throughout this emergency and meet our system’s daily demand for water. We continue to thank our customers for conserving water. In addition, the Statesville Emergency Interconnection was essential to our success during this time.”