In spite of mild winter with little snow, Bristol reservoirs are at 100 percent capacity

Posted By: Jack Krampitz March 1, 2023

By Jack Krampitz

The lack of snow this winter, despite Tuesday’s storm and another one predicted for the weekend, doesn’t have a negative on Bristol’s summer water supply, according to Rob Longo, the Superintendent of the Bristol Water and Sewer Department.

“Snow does play a factor is some of our resources, but not as much as people would think,” said Longo. “We get snow melt in our reservoir Recharge Area, but that area is small and has no relevance to what happens up North.

“Many people believe that we rely on snow in Massachusetts, Vermont etc., but that only impacts the Connecticut River and our sources are not impacted by that area.”

Longo said that Bristol’s reservoirs are at 100 percent and that any excess runs off into streams.

“Six inches of snow Tuesday and it melts later this week,” he said, “we have no room to hold the water from it. If it doesn’t melt until late March, maybe we would have some room, but historically we are full in February. A fast melt usually hurts us in capturing the runoff.”

Longo continued, “We do rely on snow melt for recharging the aquifer that supplies our wellfields, however again the timing of the melt can change what gets into the aquifers.

“If the ground is frozen and the melt happens quickly, more water runs off to catch basins than actually absorbs into the ground. If the ground is thawed like it has been most of this winter, water will absorb into the ground and recharge the aquifer,” he said.

“Right now the aquifer is very recharged. We monitor it by looking at stream levels daily and by taking water levels in our wells weekly. This winter the ground did not freeze as much as usual and so the rain we got absorbed into the ground, which is good for our wells.”

Water restrictions during the summer, he said, are dictated by historic levels with specific triggers for different drought responses. The triggers are Drought Alert, Drought Advisory, Emergency Phase I, Emergency Phase II and lastly Emergency Phase III. The triggers vary from month to month depending on normal precipitation for the area.

Longo said there is no way to predict what summer will bring.

“Because we are at 100 pecent capacity, we moved our annual flushing program (of water lines by fire hydrants) up about a month. This not only allows us to use some of the water we have, but also allows us to make room for more if we get those ‘April Showers’ they always talk about.”

The bottom line: water restrictions are much more dependent on the weather in July and August than they are on winter snowpack.

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