Malfunctioning sensor causes low water pressure for Ephrata residents - Source ONE News

Malfunctioning sensor causes low water pressure for Ephrata residents | Columbia Basin | yoursourceone.com

EPHRATA – Several residents of Ephrata, especially in the town's lower elevations, found themselves with an unexpected inconvenience on Sunday morning as they experienced low water pressure due to a malfunctioning sensor.

The Multi Agency Communications Center (MACC) raised an early alarm on the situation, prompting city staff to scramble and identify the root cause of the issue. The corrective measures involved making manual adjustments to the town's reservoir system. Pumps were activated to transfer water from other reservoirs in an effort to normalize the situation.

City Administrator, Ray Towry, expressed his surprise at the malfunction. "It's a new one for us," he said. "The computer monitoring system indicated that the reservoirs were full, which is why no low water level alarms were triggered." Towry added that even after a system restart, the reservoir readings did not reflect the reality. "Normally a restart clears the reading and gives us accurate levels," he explained.

Thankfully, this hiccup posed no serious threat. "This does not create any type of safety concern for the water system. The reservoirs didn't empty; they just reached lower levels than usual," Towry assured residents.

The city has laid out plans to replace the faulty sensor within the upcoming week. In the interim, the reservoirs will be closely monitored, with staff making manual adjustments to pumps and valves when necessary. Towry noted the silver lining in the timing of the malfunction, saying, "Had this happened during the work week, it would have been a non-issue; staff typically cross-verify the reservoir levels with the monitoring system on standard workdays."

The incident has drawn attention to the aging infrastructure of the computer monitoring system. City staff had previously recognized that the system had outlived its expected lifespan and had sought estimates to upgrade it. This recent malfunction underscores the pressing need for an update.