(5/3) Water usage in Emmitsburg has
apparently gone down, but not because
residents are using less but because the town
is losing less.
Emmitsburg resident Jef Fitzgerald recently
presented the town commissioners with a
comparison of water the used between by the
town in 2005 and 2006.
“Water consumption is down drastically,”
Fitzgerald told the commissioners.
Fitzgerald’s data showed that only three of
the 12 months showed an increase between 2005
and 2006. The town used 117,381,143 gallons of
water in 2006 compared to 129,292,222 in 2005,
a decrease of 9.2 percent.
Fitzgerald said he could think of three
reasons for the decrease: The town is
conserving water, leaks have been found and
repaired or the meters need to be
recalibrated. He said though, he hoped it was
the first two reasons, he thought that the
town should check its meters “so we don’t want
to get a false sense of security.”
Mayor Jim Hoover said in an interview that
the town staff looked over Fitzgerald’s
information and considered his conclusions.
“The meters have been calibrated and have
been calibrated every year,” Hoover said.
He said while he believes there has been
somewhat of a decrease in water usage it
wasn’t as much as Fitzgerald suggested. He
said that much of the difference is because
the system is improving, therefore where it
might have taken 105 gallons leaving the tank
to get 100 gallons in the home, now it might
only take 101 or 102 gallons leaving the tank.
“The consumption is probably less, but
there also isn’t as much leakage,” Hoover
said.
