Rationing Utilities (Kootenai: power lines, homes, income)

[oregonwoodsmoke]

My family just got a notice that our water is being rationed. We can only use outside water three days a week.


The electricity has frequent outages. Mostly short in duration, but occasionally a week or so long. The week long outages are storm related, but the ones that last 2-10 minutes are problems with the grid or with production. Nobody is requesting that we use less electricity; they just turn the electricity off.


I'm guessing, but it looks to me like the population of Idaho is outgrowing the infrastructure.

[volosong]

Do you get your power from Avista? I'm in town and rarely get a power outage, even during the wind storms earlier this year. Maybe once a year or so. We can tell because the stove and microwave clock are blinking when we wake up.

Don't know about the water. We've been told nothing.

[elousv]

Which water district?

[nm9stheham]

Beyond the storm outages (which are probably due to poor maintenance of trees over lines).....



Some possible reasons for the non-storm outages are for:
- switching in the grid to either re-route power sources or bring a backup source online in an area... which could be a result of population growth, causing backups to be used more frequently.

- or they may be bringing new service distribution areas on-line.

[Hemlock140]

The population of Idaho might well be outgrowing the infrastructure, especially in some cities, but 25% of the state is in a drought, with the south-central part of the state in extreme drought conditions. Most utility providers will start rationing well before it becomes a serious problem.
Having worked at a major water district during two major droughts in California the combination of drought and power outages can be serious in the summer fire season. For homes higher in elevation than the reservoirs serving them, it takes Power to pump up to the hills. In the Oakland Hills firestorm of 1991 the water in the hills ran out and the power lines had burned, so no water to fight the fires.

https://www.boisestatepublicradio.or...or-agriculture


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991

[Mister Torgue]

As someone who's used to extreme drought here in Texas I hope you all that are affected in Idaho get some rain and lots of it soon. It is a horrendous thing to just never see any measurable rain for a long time. 2010-2011 was a particularly hot and extremely dry period here. But like all things with mother earth we got rain and the problem resolved itself. We are due for another hot/dry cycle again having had mild and semi-wet to wet summers for the last 5~7 years or so. I hope we move outta here before that happens again. Haha.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

We've received a notice to expect power outages due to the weather (Kootenai Electric) and right now over 6,000 Avista customers are without power in Spokane.



I've had a couple of short outages at night. But with this heat wave, I assume that the demand for electric will outpace the infrastructure since everyone will have their Air-conditions running full time. My AC has started running all night and it hasn't cooled down enough to open the windows at night.


There has also been a notice that some power lines will be shut down during wind storms, due to fire danger, like they do in Northern California.

[ejisme]

In past drought years we've had the city send out water restriction notices that say something like we are only allowed to water on Odd or Even days based on the last digit of your street address. They have also said washing a car is not allowed at home, but only at commercial carwashes. I haven't gotten that notice yet this year, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[banjomike]

It's important to remember that this month and next are the height of the growing season for Idaho's crops.

They all need water, and they all need more water right now than they will in August and from then on to harvest.
It takes electricity to power all those well pumps.

Since agriculture remains Idaho's largest industry and greatest source of income, I wouldn't expect homeowner's demands to take precedence in either water or electric power right now.

We can ration more that our crops can. This heat wave won't last long now, as the summer solstice is almost upon us.

[mistyriver]

We are on Kootenai Electric and haven’t gotten any notices. Our water is from our well so no rationing.