The City of Danville Municipal Utilities has requested that Junction City residents conserve water as a combination of the cold weather, burst water mains, and increased customer usage have caused a lower water capacity in the system than normal.

Danville Municipal Utilities Director Marshall Carrier said that lower water pressure could continue to be an issue even as the brutally cold weather subsides.

“It’s not uncommon for freezing ground and shifting soil to cause water main and sewer line breaks and cause low water pressure for customers,” Carrier said. “As you come out of the cold you still have impacts as the ground thaws and causes soil to shift. Right now we are evaluating water availability and pressures throughout the Junction City area mainly. We are seeing higher than normal usage, customers are dripping their faucets to keep lines from freezing. If enough people do that, it can deplete your capacity in your tanks. That said, it is completely understandable for them to do that. We are just asking the customers to try and conserve water the best the can.”

He continued, “A lot of our personnel are working on water main breaks and getting meters thawed to get customers back into service. When you have higher than normal demand, it can lead to issues in the system. We are starting to work our way out of that. Our personnel have been working over the Christmas break and all hours of the night to get customers back to having water. Hopefully we will see an improvement in that process by the end of the week.”

As temperatures rise, Carrier said that thawing pipes can cause issues too.

“In situations like we had, it’s not uncommon for customers have internal plumbing in their home that have busted. As the temperatures rise and the pipe thaw they realize they have a leak in the house, in the basement, or under the house we get a call to have to have the their meter turned off at their request because their house is getting flooded. We have had numerous calls, but are doing our best to get caught back up. The stars kind of aligned, weather-related impacts and increased customer usage, that we had to issue the press release asking them to limit usage.”

Junction City Mayor Jim Douglas said that he wasn’t notified about the issue and that most people he have spoken to have water.

“I got to read it on Facebook,” Douglas said. “It’s hard to say, I have water but I have received a few calls from people saying they don’t have water. Most of the people I reckon have water. The only people without water had lines bust, but once those were repaired everything has been okay.”