Harrisonburg advising residents to conserve water: No estimate on when full service to resume

The City of Harrisonburg and Harrisonburg Public Utilities are continuing to urge community members to continue to limit their water usage.

According to an update from the city, Harrisonburg Public Utilities staff has been working to address the matter, which is related to this week’s heavy rains, since Wednesday afternoon, and by 2 a.m. Thursday morning had returned the Water Treatment Plant to 25 percent functionality, allowing some water to begin being treated.

The plant reached 50 percent functionality by 4 a.m., 75 percent functionality by 10 a.m. and resumed full functionality for a short amount of time by noon.

However, an increase in water with high turbidity coming into the Water Treatment Plant from the city’s water sources of Dry River and North River again impacted the filtration system, reducing functionality back to 50 percent by Thursday afternoon.

At this time, there is no estimate on when full service will resume, a city spokesman said in an email to the local media that went out Thursday afternoon.

Failure to reduce water usage may result in the community exhausting all available clean, treated water, which would require all community members to boil their water to avoid consuming potentially dangerous bacteria and other contaminates.