Syracuse, NY – When Syracuse experienced severe water pressure problems last winter, a big relief came when the Onondaga County Water Authority began pumping some of its supply into the city’s system.
After less than a year, the city is doing it back.
As OCWA struggles to maintain water supplies for six towns east of the city after a massive pipe burst in Cicero, Syracuse is pushing an additional 800,000 gallons a day into the city of DeWitt, said Robert Brandt, the city’s water commissioner.
On a typical day, the city provides about 400,000 gallons to the DeWitt Water Department. That’s now up to 1.2 million gallons.
DeWitt, which supplies most of its residents directly, uses this extra city water to reduce what it normally draws from OCWA. While a major outage that threatens water service for thousands of residents is very unusual, cooperation between water districts to help each other solve problems is not, Brandt said.
“We work together,” Brandt said. “We’re coordinating together. We’re all trying to do our part.”
In addition to the additional water going to the city of DeWitt, the city opened a border gate in the area of Burnet Avenue and Thompson Road where OCWA provides some water directly to the more commercial part of the city. Relatedly, OCWA sends water from its western portion into the city’s system. The maneuvers help OCWA maintain pressure in the area without withdrawing from the main storage tanks.
“We’re kind of pushing water through the system,” Brandt said.
The burst pipe shut off water to six towns: DeWitt, Manlius, Pompey, Lenox, Lincoln and Sullivan. Normally, these cities use an average of about 5 million gallons of water per day. To get through the crisis, officials are asking businesses and residents to reduce consumption, bringing the total down to 3.5 million gallons.
This area includes OCWA’s two largest customers in the six cities affected by the water main break. Pharmaceutical company Lotte Biologics and the natural gas-fired power plant Carr Street Generation Station use more than 200,000 gallons of water each day.
Syracuse also contracted with Byrne Dairy to supply water for its production facility in East Syracuse. The company taps into the city’s hydrant to fill the tanks that bring water to the plant. That adds up to about 100,000 gallons per day.
The city is providing the maximum amount of assistance possible to OCWA without jeopardizing service to city customers, Brandt said.
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