Voluntary water
cutbacks urged

The Honolulu Board of Water Supply is urging customers to voluntarily reduce water use to help conserve supplies during the summer.

For nine weeks in May and June, water use on Oahu was consistently higher this year than last year, Board of Water Supply spokeswoman Su Shin said yesterday.

"Summer months tend to be drier, and consumers tend to use more water," Shin said, but "an unusually high number of brush fires (in recent weeks) put added strain on our water supply."

Between April 28 and June 29, water customers used weekly amounts from 1 million gallons a day to as much as 19 million gallons a day more than for the same weeks a year ago, Board of Water Supply statistics show.

Although aquifer levels have recovered somewhat since the six-year drought that ended in 2004, the amount of fresh water available remains less than Water Board officials would like, Shin said.

Using a banking analogy, "during that six-year drought we made a lot of withdrawals but not many deposits," Shin said.