Paonia Ran Out Of Water?

As a matter of fact, it did, Sort of.

In mid-February residents of the town of Paonia found themselves with nothing coming from their faucets. Small outages are normal in many small towns but not to the extent it occurred in Paonia.

The 1,600 residents of Paonia that went without running water from mid-February until early March found they had no water and were having to boil it to survive while the outage was addressed.

The issue began around Valentine's Day when the levels in the 2 million gallon water tank that stores the drinking water for the town started dropping. Unable to find the leak, the water pressure continued to drop. The pressure was so low on President's day the state issued a boil order for water.

Quickly running out of water, the town tapped into the state and county system.

It was then a leak was found. A pipe leading into a fire hydrant had broken and the water was going back into the river, undetected.

With the pipe repaired, the town urged residents to go easy on water consumption to allow the tank to refill.

But it did not, which led to an emergency being declared. Potable water was brought in and meetings were held to let everyone know what was going on with the water.

It was then they found another leak, near the elementary school, which was keeping the supply from refilling.

Once the leaks were repaired and the tank refilled, the discussion turned to future water conservation.

Being without water for 13 days had to be a nightmare.