Connecticut Water Officials Proclaim The Drought Is Over

CONNECTICUT — After experiencing "widespread drought conditions" across the state this summer and fall that prompted water conservation requests in several towns, Connecticut Water reported this week that, as of mid-January, all its reservoirs have "recovered."

The road back to full capacity was particularly remarkable because of increased water usage as folks remained home amid the coronavirus pandemic, utility officials said.

"While our water supply levels remained adequate for customer needs in 2020, residential water usage last year was considerably higher due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It took some of our reservoirs the full balance of last year and into the early days of 2021 to reach full capacity," Connecticut Water Vice President of Service Delivery Craig Patla said. "We relied heavily on December's rain and snow to recover from 40 percent higher usage as well as the kinds of drought conditions we had not seen since 2016."

At the peak of the drought reservoir levels across the state were at about 60 to 65 percent of capacity, utility officials said..

Connecticut Water maintains 18 "surface water supplies" and more than 200 groundwater wells in the 60 water systems it operates throughout the state.

Utility officials said they were prepared via "considerable investment" in water supplies, treatment, and interconnections "to provide operational flexibility to support customer needs during periods of drought or high demands," officials said.

Many systems received conservation requests this summer and fall to extend the available water supply to serve the needs of the community.

"While we are thankful for the change in weather conditions, we're also grateful to the commitment of our customers to cut unnecessary water usage, such as lawn watering, so that we were able to maintain enough volumes in our systems to serve our communities," Patla said.

While the state has largely recovered from the impacts of the drought, water conservation is recommended all year round.

Connecticut Water provides water service to nearly 350,000 people in 60 Connecticut communities and wastewater service to 10,000 people in Southbury, Connecticut.

The towns served are Ashford, Avon, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Bolton, Brooklyn, Burlington, Canton, Chester, Clinton, Colchester, Columbia, Coventry, Deep River, Durham, East Granby, East Haddam, East Hampton, East Windsor, Ellington, Enfield, Essex, Farmington, Griswold, Guilford, Haddam, Hebron, Killingly, Killingworth, Lebanon, Madison, Manchester, Mansfield, Marlborough, Middlebury, Naugatuck, Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Oxford, Plainfield, Plymouth, Portland, Prospect, Simsbury, Somers, South Windsor, Southbury, Stafford, Stonington, Suffield, Thomaston, Thompson, Tolland, Vernon, Voluntown, Waterbury, Westbrook, Willington, Windsor Locks and Woodstock.