The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
One of the three entities from which the township buys water has asked its customers to conserve water as much as they can.
NJ American Water put a notice out on January 3 asking its 45 customer towns in Somerset, Mercer, Hunterdon, Middlesex and Union counties to hold back on water usage.
The reason, the company said, was because of “reduced water levels caused by a system issue at its Raritan-Millstone Water Treatment Plant in Bridgewater.”
“If current conditions continue, a mandatory conservation notice may follow,” the notice stated. “When conditions improve, customers will be notified when the conservation notice is lifted.”
Township Manager Robert Vornlocker said at the January 4 Township Council reorganization meeting that NJ American Water has “somewhat remedied” the situation in Bridgewater, but they are still “asking people to conserve somewhat.”
The hitch is that water purchased from NJ American Water is combined with water purchased from the township’s two other sources – New Brunswick and North Brunswick – so it’s impossible to say which residents are using NJAW water.
Vornlocker said that because the township buys water from those two other sources, Franklin is covered in the event NJ American Water has to reduce its flow.
“That’s why we have interconnects from other providers, to take up the slack,” he said.
