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Town using less water, losing less

(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.

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