By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Water users who are supplied by the City of Kingman need to conserve water this week. KDHE has issued a No Drink Order for the City's water system. This is due to the re-activation of older wells into the system.
"We have a supply problem," said Kingman City Manager Greg Graffman. "We get our water from wells south of the city and they are not bringing in the amount of water they are supposed to be bringing in. We don't know why and we are trying to figure all of that out. We're asking residents to use water only for sanitary purposes until we can get things figured out."
This means no lawn watering or other unnecessary usage for a short period.
"We're saying it's for the next couple of days," Graffman said. "We've closed the swimming pool so it won't be used. We're just doing everything we can to restrict the water usage."
There may be other supply possibilities, but those aren't available yet.
"We've got some old wells that we've got some folks looking at now to see if we can bring those back online with some retrofitting to try to get us over this," Graffman said. "Right now, we just need people to conserve."
In addition to the City of Kingman, the rural water district in the eastern part of the county also is supplied by those same wells, so over 3000 customers are likely affected.