The water treatment plant has the capacity to treat 1.9 million gallons a day (MGD). This is not an issue for most of the year, throughout the spring, fall, and winter the usage falls around 600,000 gallons a day. So throughout most of the year, we are able to produce more water than we're using. This allows us to fill our reservoirs for the backup.
In the summer we see a sharp increase in water usage. It more than doubles at times, we're using a million gallons more a day in the summer than we are in the winter.
When the water usage is more than 1.4 million gallons a day this means that the water plant is running upwards of 20 hours a day. This also doesn't allow us to refill our reservoirs. If the reservoirs are not full and a part breaks, there is not enough capacity to serve the entire city for more than a day.
We also need the reservoirs full to keep enough water flow for the firefighting. As we head into the summer, this is one of our highest concerns.