Water in abundance

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: January 9, 2009

Waterways around Culpeper brimmed over Thursday after three days of sporadic rain that never turned to ice.

There were no reports of serious flooding as a result of the inch and a half of rain that fell since Monday.

But officials say Culpeper is keeping its head above water, precipitationwise, compared to the severe drought of late 2007, when Lake Pelham dipped to three feet below normal.

In fact, as of Thursday, the town reservoir was 9 inches above the overflow dam, according to Dwight Wicks, town director of environmental services.

“That is an excellent position for us,” he said. “We’ve got as much as we can hold.”

Lake Pelham has been overflowing since last month, Wicks said, though it is higher now. However, he cautioned townsfolk to continue to be conservation-minded; 5,300 mostly residential customers get their drinking water from Lake Pelham.

“We always have to be careful about not using too much water and thinking we can go back to our wasteful ways,” Wicks said. “Because six months from now the water might not be so plentiful.”

Calvin Meadows, meteorological technician with the National Weather Service in Sterling, said the longer-term precipitation outlook for the Piedmont was “too close to call.”

The area is definitely not in a drought, he said. However, the next three months could bring some unseasonable days.

“The outlook for January through March indicates warmer than normal temperatures on average,” Meadows said.

Jim Hust, chief operator at the town sewer plant, said the week’s rain brought higher than normal flows to the plant, but that it was nothing the facility couldn’t handle.

On Tuesday, the sewer plant processed 2.35 million gallons and by Wednesday the flow had risen to 3.7 million gallons, said Hust. The plant is rated to treat up to 4 million gallons per day but an upgrade to 6 mgd is slated for completion by next year.