UPDATE: Lincoln water restrictions reduced to voluntary 25 percent

UPDATE:

At a news conference Wednesday, Mayor Chris Beutler had reason to smile.

“Today, I am so happy to announce that Lincoln is ending the Level 2 mandatory restrictions and implementing completely voluntary restrictions,” Beutler said.

He said more wells along the Platte River, which supply water to Lincoln, have increased production.  The City said Lincoln has gone from producing 32 million gallons of water a day to 40 million.

Beutler thanked residents for cooperating with the restrictions over the past few days.

“We pulled together like never before,” he said.  “I think I can honestly say, in the 12 years I’ve been mayor, I’ve never been more proud of this city.”

But he said we’re not out of the woods yet.

Beutler is still asking Lincoln residents to reduce their water consumption by 25 percent instead of 50.

The city said they’re close to restoring power to another major well, which would add another 20 million gallons per day.

“We’re getting a lot of progress toward reaching that horizontal well on the east bank,” Transportation and Utilities Director Miki Esposito said.  “So by the end of the day, we’ll have a access road totally re–rocked and tomorrow we can focus our efforts on actually setting an electrical pole to restore power to that well.”

The city said there are also some damaged wells in the north wellfield on the Platte River.  They said they hope to have an estimate for how much repairing them will cost by Friday

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Mayor Chris Beutler said the people of Lincoln have risen to the challenge.

The city is downgrading the water restrictions.

“Today I’m so happy to announce that Lincoln is ending the Level 2 mandatory restrictions and implementing voluntary restrictions,” Beutler said.

He said more wells along the Platte River, which supply water to Lincoln, have increased production.  For example, we have gone from producing 32 million gallons of water per day to 40 million.

He also said they’re close to restoring power to another major well.

“We pulled together like never before,” Beutler said.  “I think I can honestly say in the 12 years I’ve been mayor, I’ve never been more proud of this city.”

Beutler said Lincoln’s not out of the woods yet.  He’s asking residents to reduce their water consumption to 25 percent versus the 50 percent.

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Mayor Chris Beutler announced Wednesday evening that city-wide water restrictions have been dialed back to a 25 percent voluntary restriction. 

The city had issued mandatory 50 percent restrictions for residents and 25% for businesses due to flooding at Lincoln wellfields near Ashland. 

Beutler said water production has increased from 32 million gallons per day to 40 million. 

This is a developing story, we will continue to provide updates as they become available.