Heat Waves Drive Up Cost Of Water

Aquarion Water Company, the supplier for Milford and its surrounding towns is warning that the heat wave affecting our area is creating a surge in water usage. The surge broke all recent records when the outflow meter topped 120 million gallons in just one day.

Aquarion said that the system is being tested to new levels and reports of brown water have surfaced. Some concerned over the "muddy water" feared they were getting the bottom scum of an empty reservoir, however this according Aquarion is not the case. Aquarion said that all drinking water fills very large tanks at night but excessive use is not allowing the tanks to fill completely adding a strain on those water users south of Milford.

The people who live south of Milford have pipes that reduce in size therefore the more water we use the less water is available to those in Fairfield county. The water company is advising that residents with odd street Numbers water their lawns on odd days, those with even numbered homes should water their lawns on even numbered days.

The national weather service has indicated that the record breaking triple digit heat wave is expected to continue for a few more days. Thereafter thunderstorms will arrive and with it some slightly cooler temperatures.

Should the heatwave continue unabated inducing an added strain on our water delivery system Aquarion said they will "dramatically increase the cost of water" to force conservation.

Heat Wave Bakes Milford

Today and yesterday were bad days to try and discredit global warming. The temperature here in town soared to a record 98 Degrees and our towns kids were dripping in sweat as they sat in classrooms without air conditioning.

Our staff contacted the school superintendent and expressed concern over the extreme heat, especially after several schools either let their students out early or just took the day off all together.

Milford's Superintendent, Polanski said he spent a good part of his day walking around asking teachers and students how they were coping with the extreme heat. He gave an encouraging report, indicating that the kids and teachers were doing well.

This, however was not what some of the local kids said to me at the bus stop this morning. The consensus was that only two classrooms they were aware of had air conditioning, and they said that during their final exams they found the heat a to be a major distraction to their testing.

When I mentioned that I called their Superintendent to express their concern, one student sarcastically replied, "easy for him to say that, his office is one of the few that has air conditioning."

Parents expressed concern over the fact that the schools were even open at all during this excessively hot day, some did not understand why the school could not afford air conditioning in such extreme weather; at the very least it should be turned on in the event of an emergency.

The high cost of energy, combined with crippling property tax increases, declining ED funding and forced cutbacks to save our teachers jobs, in my opinion is what has led to this bad situation. Some time ago I wrote a blog stating that just this would happen if the city and state did not initiate a conservation program, and begin to install solar panels and budget friendly technologies in our city buildings.

A energy conservation expert at TriCity said that if the city abandoned its current technology in favor of geothermal heat pumps alone, this would cut the cities energy consumption by nearly 1/3 shortly after it get turned on. The problem is not recognizing the merit of this technology, it is getting the city to come up with money to begin installing it. If they do not do it now, then over the next decade they will have paid for it just through the current inefficient system.