Mother Nature lending a helping hand to ease area's water crunch

BYRAM-Some Byram and Sparta residents are currently dodging a bullet when it comes to municipal water. Although several wells that supply water to both municipalities are currently off line because of contamination, the spring weather has provided plenty of rainfall, which is making up the difference for those on the municipal system. "With what those seven wells were capable of supplying, we lost the capacity of about half of a million gallons per day," said Sparta Engineer Charles Ryan. Sparta supplies waters to Byram residents in the Seneca Lake area. If in fact the warm weather had arrived without rainfall, the area would have been particularly susceptible to drought regulations. To help avoid the possibility of water restrictions in the future, planning is currently under way to develop four new wells near White Lake Road. The new water supply is tentatively scheduled to be online by the summer of 2005. In addition, Ryan said, the township is looking into the possibility of treating one or two of the Seneca Lake wells taken offline due to uranium contamination. If the uranium could be removed with treatment, it would create yet another source of water for the township. "At this point, there is no concern with the summer weather, but if Mother Nature hits us with what we had two years ago, that could be a different story," said Ryan.