Public asked to reduce water usage

Planning to wash your car or water your garden tomorrow or Thursday?

Think again.

The Dunedin City Council is asking the public to reduce water usage where possible on those days as it shuts down its main city water supply to conduct repairs.

Gerard McCombie, water production manager, said as much demand as possible would be transferred to the Southern Water treatment plant, but many of the hill suburbs would rely on the stored water in Mount Grand's treated water reservoirs while the repairs were being done.

The council's planning indicated there would be sufficient stored water, but it would be helpful if domestic consumers conserved water to minimise the draw-down in the reservoirs, to ensure a margin of safety to cover demand including firefighting requirements, he said.

The council asked people to reduce water usage where possible, such as putting off watering gardens or washing cars until the weekend.

The shutdown is to enable repairs to be carried out on a concrete structure that carries the main flow of water through the middle of the plant.

The concrete on the structure had worn away, exposing some steel reinforcing, and the council wanted to get it fixed before the steel started corroding, Mr McCombie said.

It was unusual to close the plant for such a long period, but the structure was not in an area that could be bypassed, he said.

 

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