Amador County – The Amador Water Agency board of directors heard about impacts from the mid-November storm, and thought part of the information may be used as a snapshot to show potential savings of the Gravity Supply Line.

Construction manager Barry Birge said the agency made it successfully through its first furlough day, and then the storm hit. Snow was removed at pump stations, and generators were delivered to run the pumps, which carry raw water to the Buckhorn water treatment plant, whose customers are the Central Amador Water Project service area.

General Manager Gene Mancebo said power was off and on for 24 hours at the pump stations, and about 200 gallons of diesel fuel was burned by the generators during the outage.

Mancebo said 110 overtime hours were worked, including all systems in the agency. About 10 hours of overtime were worked on the pump stations. About 50 customers lost water pressure, and were notified by customer service that they were under a boil water order.

Operations manager Chris McKeage said well over $2,000 was spent at Buckhor just for diesel fuel, burned to run the pump stations during the outage.

Director Gary Thomas said the storm costs could possibly be used to get a “snapshot on hours” and costs. He said that could possibly be used to sell the Gravity Supply Line, which would replace the water line that feeds the Buckhorn plant and runs on electric pumps.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.