Limit on Water Use Jan. 29 During Plant Outage

Residents in the Sun City and Georgetown Village neighborhoods in Georgetown should not use irrigation systems or sprinklers and should limit other water use on Sunday, January 29. The reason is a scheduled outage of the Lake Water Treatment Plant. On Sunday, the only available water will be in storage tanks. The limit on water use is in effect all day Sunday from the early morning hours until midnight.

The treatment plant will be offline for much of the day on Sunday while construction crews modify the plant intake pipes. The work is part of an expansion project to increase treatment capacity at the plant from 19.6 to 28.6 million gallons per day. The expansion project is scheduled to be completed this summer.

During the outage, the utility will have limited ability to produce and transport water in the service area north of Lake Georgetown, and west of Shell Road, which includes Sun City and Georgetown Village.

“If we suddenly had a great demand for water on Sunday in that area due to a wildfire, for example, our storage capacity could be depleted in a relatively short time frame,” says David Thomison, water services manager. “That’s why it’s so important for our customers in that area to limit their water use on Sunday. If they do, it will ensure that we have enough water in case of an emergency that day.”

Since the Chisholm Trail Special Utility District also relies on water from the Lake Water Treatment Plant, the utility is asking its customers to conserve. “Chisholm Trail Special Utility District does not expect any impact to its customers during the shutdown,” says Jennifer McKnight, general manager for CTSUD. “However, the District encourages customers to make plans to conserve water during the shutdown as a precautionary measure to ensure plenty of water in an emergency event.”

To prepare for the planned outage, the City of Georgetown water utility will be filling the system storage tanks to ensure that the maximum capacity is available before the plant shutdown.

The Lake Water Treatment Plant should be back online by the end of the day on Sunday, when customers can resume outdoor watering according to the twice-weekly watering schedule. For details, go to water.georgetown.org.

For questions, call the Georgetown Utility Systems 24-hour number (512) 930-3555 or send an email at gus@georgetown.org.

January 10, 2012

IMPORTANT NOTICE: OVERLAPPING BILLS NOT PAST DUE

Due to the billing cycle change in January 2012, two bills were sent to customers with the same due date of January 16, 2012:

·         Bill mailed December 22, 2011 (November usage)

·         Bill mailed January 4, 2012 (December usage)

Customers that had not paid the first bill by January 4^th are receiving new bills that indicate the previous bill is past due when it is not due until January 16, 2012.  This was caused by the billing software which is not set up to allow for overlapping bills with the same due date.  This will be the only month customers will experience the overlapping bills as the billing cycle change has now been completed.  Customers that have their bank accounts drafted for water bills will have both billing amounts drafted on January 16, 2012, unless a deferred payment arrangement has been made.  CTSUD apologizes for the inconvenience.

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