Power Returns To City Water System

Electricity has returned to the systems at the reservoir supplying New London and Waterford after the power was lost during Hurricane Irene.

Joe Lanzafame, director of the , said electricity was restored at Lake Konomoc in Waterford at around 11 a.m. The reservoir, which is capable of producing 9 million gallons a day, has a water treatment facility at the site.

Barry Weiner, chairman of the Water and Water Pollution Control Authority, said Monday that there was an extended outage at Lake Konomoc. He said a backup generator at the site failed after about seven hours of operation, creating “quite a serious problem” for maintaining fire protection and the supply of drinking water.

Lanzafame said the department began looking for a replacement generator and put out a notice about the potential shortage of water. He said water quality was never an issue during the storm, but there was the potential of shortages if customers continued to draw water while the pumps lacked electricity to replace it.

“There was plenty of water in the tanks, and it was just a precaution to send out that notice,” he said.

Lanzafame said the department also took the precaution because it was unclear how long it would take to replace the generator. He said the offered a 500 kilowatt generator for the purpose, and the department picked it up with a dump truck. He said the generator was more powerful than the one the city owns, so it was running at one-third capacity until Connecticut Light and Power restored electricity to the reservoir systems.

“The generator that the Coast Guard leant us actually saved us, so kudos to them,” he said.

Despite the power interruption, Lanzafame said there was no interruption in water or sewer service during the course of the storm. He said the wastewater treatment plant at Fort Trumbull never lost electricity, and that a portable generator was set up at a single sewer pump station that lost power. He said several generators at water pumps failed due to overheating or mechanical breakdown, but that portable generators were brought in to replace them.

Precautions were taken prior to Irene’s landfall due to the anticipation of problems. Lanzafame said the department’s staff was at full capacity on Sunday, and that the backup generators were fueled and pump stations checked before the storm hit.

Weiner said the employees of Veolia Water, a company the Department of Public Utilities partners with to provide water, performed well during the emergency.

“Everyone should know that those people risked their lives, literally, in the storm to keep this system running,” he said.

“At the end of the day, when we looked back at how many things could have gone wrong, we were very pleased with the way things turned out,” said Lanzafame.