The capital city didn’t set a water-use record Tuesday, as it did Monday. Waterworks manager L.D. McMullen says the scorching heat and recent lack of rain were factors, but Monday’s always a high-demand day of the week. A lot of it, he says, is business and industry starting up the week’s operations while homeowners are still watering yards and gardens. Over the weekend, he says the waterworks treated about 77-Million gallons of water a day, and added eight-Million gallons on Monday. Mc-Mullen says even in a drought, Iowa’s not likely to run dry. Iowa has quite a bit of water, he says, and in particular Des Moines has two rivers. But the capital city doesn’t depend on those rivers without a backup. In addition, the city stores water in Saylorville Lake and a lake west of town in case severe drought depletes the rivers. There’s not only enough water for Des Moines to use…there’s enough to sell to a dozen suburbs and surrounding towns. It definitely helps revenues, he says, though it puts plenty of stress on the water-treatment system — even though it was designed to handle a big load.
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