It will become more difficult for new customers to tap into town water in the near future, as the Block Island Water Company struggles to keep up with demand. On Monday the Water Commission voted to take a more active role in the application process, reviewing each applicant for new water allocations on a case-by-case basis.
“The water district finds itself at a crossroads with available water capacity,” Water Superintendent John Breunig wrote in a memo to the Board of Commissioners for the September 20 meeting. “It’s the simple math of development and new customers; for 62 days of summer the customers will be using more water than can be made at the facility on any given day,” he told the board at the meeting.
Breunig has been talking about potential water shortfalls for months, and in July pointed out his concerns with the way the Water Commission calculates customer allocation. In a nutshell, the allocation formula averages the usage for July, August, and September to come up with the amounts. He says the problem is that including September usage in the calculation, which is significantly lower than usage in July and August, drags the average down. This
