Huntley urges: Keep up water conservation
By Jeanie Mayer For The Courier-News August 3, 2012 12:12PM
Updated: September 6, 2012 6:20AM
HUNTLEY — The village is pumping millions more gallons of water than normal, and residents are being encouraged to continue conservation efforts as the drought continues.
Village Manager David Johnson said Huntley’s five deep wells typically pump 1.5 million gallons of water per day to serve the village’s nearly 25,000 residents. He reported that usage in July was up to an average of 3.2 million gallons — with spikes in usage up to 5.3 million gallons — per day.
According to Johnson, the village’s system can handle no more that 6 million gallons per day.
“Our system has the capacity to get close to 6 million gallons per day, but that would be really taxing to our system,” Johnson told village board members this past week.
Johnson said the village issued a bulletin to residents asking them to voluntarily restrict their home water usage, and the police department issued about 50 warning tickets to residents who were violating the outdoor water usage restrictions during July.
The restrictions allow outside watering on an odd/even-day basis, depending on the address.
He said no more warnings will be issued by police, and those violating the outdoor water usage restrictions will be cited by police.
“Our residents need to be commended for taking what we asked and applying it at home,” Johnson said. “We ask our residents to continue using conservation methods going forward.”
Trustee Harry Leopold noted that the internal regulations at Sun City have been loosened by that subdivision’s board and that no residents will be cited for “brown lawn” while the drought and water restrictions are in place.
Road work
In other business, the village board talked about funding for scheduled street improvement projects in Huntley for the fiscal years 2015-2017.
Johnson identified five road projects totaling an estimated $6.3 million, with federal funding paying for most of that.
The largest project is a $3.5 million extension of Reed Road west to Coyne Station Road.
“We are looking to get the highest possible (grant of) $1.5 million for the federal share on this project,” Johnson said.
Other projects are expected to receive an 80 percent split from the federal coffers.
Those projects include the resurfacing of Kreutzer Road west of the St. Mary Catholic Church to the railroad tracks; Haligus Road south of Algonquin Road to Kreutzer; Main Street from Church Street to Haligus; and portions of Del Webb Boulevard.
