“Outdoor Water Restrictions Eased; Odd/Even Hose Watering in Place for Monmouth County Customers.
“Lawn Sprinkler System Use Still Banned for Now as New Jersey American Water Monmouth System is Stabilized “
VOORHEES, N.J. (July 8, 2012) – New Jersey American Water has modified the outdoor water ban for all its Monmouth County customers, easing the restrictions that began last Friday when a bridge holding three pipes at the company’s Swimming River Water Treatment Plant collapsed. Customers may now use handheld garden hoses for outdoor purposes, every other day, between the hours of 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., and again from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. With very limited exceptions, lawn sprinkler irrigation system use is still banned. Even with the easing of the ban’s restrictions, New Jersey American Water is strongly advising its Monmouth County customers to continue conserving water both inside and out. If strict conservation measures are not followed then it may be necessary to reinstitute a stringent outdoor water ban.
“Water service is safe and reliable and we are grateful to our customers and the entire Monmouth County community for their cooperation and patience while we worked around the clock to recover from this event. The temporary piping to bypass the bridge is complete which enables us to restore the water system to near normal capacity. Conservation is still critical during the current heat wave as even during normal circumstances lawn irrigation places a heavy demand on our system. It is essential that we do not exceed system capacity as customers restart their outdoor water use,” said Stephen P. Schmitt, vice president of operations for New Jersey American Water. “We are also moving forward on the permanent pipelines to minimize the chance of a similar service disruption happening again. In the meantime, our customers should follow the odd/even guidelines for outdoor watering.”
The odd/even schedule is effective beginning today and entails:
• Handheld garden hose outdoor water use between the hours of 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on odd-numbered days of the month if your street address is an odd number (i.e., 23 Oak St., 7 Maple Ave.)
• Handheld garden hose outdoor water use between the hours of 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on even-numbered days of the month if your street address is an even number (i.e., 6 Oak St., 354 Maple Ave.)
I don’t get this at all. I thought the watering ban was by the authority of Monmouth County. That’s what my emails from Neptune Township say. So how does the water company have the authority to alter the terms of the ban? Why is this not coming from Monmouth County? Have we ceded governmental authority to a private company?
Charles, Great question. This sounds like a job for … (playing super-hero music) … SUPER BLOGFINGER!
‘Something is rotten in Denmark’. Every year there is some widespread issue with the service from NJ American and all they do is raise rates and call for water restrictions because of one issue or another. Will there ever be a thorough, unbiased investigation of this recent episode? I doubt it.
water crisis.
we were fortunate and unfortunate:
we need a dehumidifier in basement : unfortunate
we used the water accumulation to water our garden: fortunate
beverlee
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. Gov. Christie needs to look into these bozos — they cannot keep claiming emergencies every summer and take weeks to fix a few pipes. Something is wrong here. What are they doing with all the incremental money from all the rate hikes over the past few years?? Who is allowing these rate hikes? Who is holding them accountable for service levels? Clearly no one.
I am freely watering at this point.
NJAWC needs to put out better information on this. In our neighborhood, a street over, TWO households are already using lawn sprinklers connected to a hose to water the lawn; and yes…you guessed it—one on the even side of the street and one on the odd side of the street. At one of the houses, half the water is ending up IN the street.
And of course, our police department just disavowed any knowledge of what the policy is— referring people to NJAWC.
Be polite, water what needs watering. A lot of time & money, not to mention elbow grease, goes into our gardens. I don’t care what anyone else does, nor do I believe half of what the Water Company says. Live & Let Live,.
I have absolutely no respect for the water utilities. I have a summer cottage in OG and a full time residence in central NJ. Our streets were recently equipped with temporary water pipes and a hose into our homes to facilitate the relining of the existing water pipes in our old neighborhood. After 6 months of inconvenience, noise, destruction of our roads and side yards along with numerous days of boil water advisories and no water (when trucks would run over the temporary pipes and tear them open) I have decided that the water company is the most dysfunctional business I have ever seen. For 4 weeks a fire hydrant in front of my home was dismantled and literally gushing water. We could not stand the noise in our family room and finally put a piece of wood at the mouth of the hydrant to create a cascade of water rather than a gush. After the hydrant in front of my home was finally closed (4 weeks of complaining to the water company) another in the neighborhood was opened. This process continues. Supposedly this is to flush the lines and “get the ph in the correct range.” I have never seen so much waste of resources and destruction on our neighborhood roads. Perhaps they need to rework all the water they are wasting in my neighborhood to the folks in Monmouth County!
I’m in a new home and have spent considerable time and money on landscaping and flower expenses this summer. I am very careful about my consumption when watering (directly on the plants, no soaker hoses or sprinklers). Restrictions/odd/even/whatever, NJAW created their own mess; my plants aren’t going to suffer because of their stupidity.