Early Fall Drought Forces Water Use Warning in Ithaca

Ithaca has entered the rainy season, and October has brought a few days of overcast mist and soaking downpours. But from September 22 to October 21 - just today - the City of Ithaca has been under a water usage warning due to low levels in Six Mile Creek.

Ithaca Water and Sewer made the call on September 22 to ask residents to cut back on all non-essential water use, and to consolidate their use for essential needs like cooking and bathing. Water Treatment Plant Chief Operator, Nate Carman of Ithaca Water and Sewer, says he wasn’t “the only party involved there, there was the whole water and sewer collective ... It was a joint decision.”

Carman says that levels at the Six Mile Creek reservoir were not the deciding factor in the warning, but was caused by a lack of water in Fall Creek. “The main thing was that Cornell was having a hard time with the drought. Because they do not have a reservoir, they just have an intake pipe right off of Fall Creek. And so when their creek level gets low, they have to start making some moves pretty quickly,” Carman says of the concern.

Working together with monitoring systems put in place by the United States Geological Survey, Carman and Ithaca Water track daily rainfall and water levels of the Six Mile Creek System. The city has drawn its water from the reservoir for the last 50 years, and Carman and his crew are no strangers to managing extreme weather conditions. The most recent notable drought hit Ithaca in 2016, just as the water treatment plant was receiving major updates. “We learned a lot from that,” Carman says of the difficulties, “and so we apply a lot of that to know this current drought or this current summer.”

With precipitation levels trending towards a wetter, more normal fall, Six Mile Creek is due to rise. According to data published daily by the USGS, Six Mile Creek has benefitted from the damp and gloom. However, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, the region still isn’t seeing as much precipitation as other parts of the east coast. Streamflow in New York State is still low, and drought conditions in Pennsylvania and New York are expected to persist.

And although residents can have peace of mind about their taps turning on, Carman says water conservation should be a year-round practice. “It is a wonderful, wonderful hike going through there. Potter's Falls and second dam bring a lot of folks out. So from my side of things, it's protecting the quality of water at the reservoir.”

(Graph via NRCC)

“It's good to bring awareness to where your water comes from. I think that's something that a lot of people take for granted. And they don't quite understand that a lot of work goes into when you turn on your faucet in your house, that water comes out drinkable water.”