Plymouth – The Plymouth water treatment plant suffered a power outage earlier this month, and the condition apparently went unreported for several hours. Mayor Jon Colburn told the Plymouth City Council Thursday that the outage was discovered on the morning of October 16th by the Amador Water Agency, but it was not reported to the city until about 4 hours later. City Manager Dixon Flynn said that at about noon on October 16th, the AWA asked him if he knew that the Plymouth water treatment plant’s power was out. Flynn said a city maintenance worker went to the plant and found the alarms going off, and a note from 8 a.m. that morning, saying that the power was off and “someone needs to call (Pacific Gas & Electric).” City staff did not know who should call the utility company. City Clerk Gloria Stoddard said PG&E finally sent a truck after she called and told them that the plant and tank are the city of Plymouth’s water supply. Flynn told the city council that in the time between the note being left and the power being reactivated in the afternoon, at about 3 p.m., the 500,000-gallon tank’s water level had gone down 2 feet. He said AWA operations manager Chris McKeage “wasn’t too concerned” about the outage. Flynn told him “any time the power goes down, the water agency should notify Plymouth.” Colburn said he was told by AWA that they could have activated the water pipeline to Plymouth, but if they did, the city would have to start the contract of service with the agency. Flynn said the AWA plans a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Plymouth-AWA pipeline on November 2nd, but the system still is in need of state permitting. Finance Director Jeffrey Gardner reported on first quarter revenues and expenditures, saying sales tax was lower than expected. He said he had anticipated water and sewer fund revenues to be a little under normal, but “actually it was a little over.” He said he expected water usage and revenue might be less because some big users were getting water from the Arroyo Ditch this summer. Water was sent down the Arroyo Ditch this summer, after work by the Shenandoah Water Company, which is now negotiating with the city. The water was used for irrigation at the 49er Village mobile home park, and by the Amador County Fair. Colburn said meters possibly in use at the fairgrounds and 49er Village should be used to bill those customers. Colburn said: “We want to bill them $100 per acre foot” because “we don’t want to be gifting that Arroyo Ditch water.” Gardner said sales tax in the city is off a little bit, and Colburn said sales tax is down about 20 percent statewide. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.