Submitted by Town of Friday Harbor.

The Town of Friday Harbor’s Water Conservation mandate remains in place today. We again ask everyone to do their part to keep water use to a minimum. Please avoid washing clothes, long showers, and running water when not necessary. We continue to seek solutions without imposing mandatory area-wide shutdowns.

While we are encouraged that we have not fallen further behind today, we have yet to recover the lost tank levels. The Town crews have discovered over 100 leaks that occurred as a result of the freeze last week, and 7 new leaks were found this morning. The Water Plant continues to produce safe drinking water, which is pumped back to town, but cold temperatures have slowed production rates to levels much lower than possible in the summer, and we simply cannot produce enough water to offset the losses. Our number one priority is to make sure the water you receive is of the highest quality.

As leaks on private properties are discovered and line losses extinguished, we hope to make progress in the next several days. In the interim, we are asking that you continue to help us recover for the benefit of the entire system. We will continue to update you regularly as new information is obtained.

Special thanks go out to our water crew and members of other departments of the Town that have shifted over to bolster our water department personnel. Two recently retired members of the department have come back to help in our efforts as well. They have all been out working in miserable conditions and they have made headway towards returning us to normal. We will know more tomorrow morning as we hope for some recovery overnight, especially in light of the new leaks identified today and your outstanding efforts to conserve water to give us a better chance. Thank you very much.