New Jersey American Water is asking its Monmouth and Ocean County customers to use an odd/even schedule for outdoor watering due to a planned outage at one of its primary water treatment plants and increased high-water demands.
“We hope that our Monmouth and Ocean County customers will voluntarily adopt odd/even watering practices as we continue through the summer,” said Carmen Tierno, senior director of operations at New Jersey American Water. “Practicing odd/even watering now will help us manage a finite supply of water, yet our customers will still be able to maintain their lawns and gardens.”
Odd/even guidelines are:
• Outdoor water use on odd-numbered days of the month if your street address is an odd number (i.e., 23 Oak St., 7 Maple Ave.)
• Outdoor water use on even-numbered days of the month if your street address is an even number (i.e., 6 Oak St., 354 Maple Ave.)
• Water early or late in the day to minimize evaporation
Exceptions are:
• Watering of new sod or seed if daily watering is required (Note: it is recommended that any planting of new sod or seed that has not already taken place be delayed until the fall)
• Use of private wells for irrigation
• Commercial uses of outdoor water, such as for nurseries, farm stands, power washing, plumbing, athletic fields, and car washes
• Watering of athletic fields
Additional tips and information on wise water use are available on New Jersey American Water’s website at www.newjerseyamwater.com under Water Information.
What is a “planned outage” and what is the point/ benefit of it? Especially since the summer is a time when possibly more water is being used. Are they trying to control our water use?
Didn’t we just have a lot of rain. And what does an outage of water mean? Is it like not having any water for a certain amount of time, like an electrical outage means no electric? That would be disastrous.