Bethlehem officials are urging that voluntary water conservation measures be taken by residential and industrial users, as below-average rainfall in the past six months has caused concern about a shortage this summer.
In 1981, a continuing drought threatened water supplies in much of the Northeastern United States, including the Lehigh Valley, which was within the range of the Delaware River Basin Commission's drought emergency area. Pennsylvania enacted mandatory drought prevention measures, forbidding certain non-essential water uses during much of 1981 and early 1982.
But 1982 brought a substantial increase in rainfall and the emergency was lifted in April of that year. By March 1983, Bethlehem's Penn Forest and Wild Creek reservoirs had reached their 10.6-billion-gallon capacity, with water running over the spillways.
The rainfall situation has again reversed itself, and city reservoirs are down 26 percent thanks to a returning drought. The DRBC issued a drought warning on Jan. 23, urging voluntary conservation of water in residential and industrial uses in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
In Bethlehem, officials are urging the same thing in the hope of avoiding more stringent measures this summer, when water usage peaks.
"Our reservoir levels should be coming up. Instead they're going down," Public Works Director Wendell Sherman said last week when the two city reservoirs contained 7.8-billion gallons of water, or 74 percent of capacity.
The average level on March 1 during the years 1973-84 was 97 percent, said City Forester John Anspach, who keeps watch over the Carbon County watershed. On March 1, 1984, the water was running over the spillways.
"This concerns us," Anspach said of the diminishing supply. He fears a return to the drought-warning stage if the usage rate is not curtailed or the level of rainfall does not increase.
"We may have to go back to mandatory restrictions" if the situation does not improve, Sherman said.
On the bright side is the fact that spring usually brings increased rainfall. The officials are hoping this will happen and said they do not want to cause undue concern.
Over the past 38 years, rainfall in the Bethlehem watershed area has averaged 22.18 inches from September through February, with snowfall amounts translated into rain. From last September through February, however, rainfall measured only 13.16 inches, a 41-percent deficiency, Anspach said.
The reservoir level basically has held constant over the past week, with the precipitation that arrived Monday, Anspach said yesterday.
Sherman added that Bethlehem Steel Corp. has cooperated admirably with a city request made in February, reducing use of city water by 3-million to 4- million gallons per day through greater use of creek and well water.
The city system delivers 24-million to 25-million gallons of water per day to users on the average, Sherman said. It has a design capacity of 30-million gallons per day.