A lightning strike that occurred sometime during the weekend of May 29–31, damaged electrical lines in the town-owned Fairfield Hills water supply system, resulting in a series of events that caused the failure of two major water pumps in the system.

After a low-water alarm at the Fairfield Hills water storage tanks sounded on May 30, town officials took steps to keep the water supply system functioning by having large water tanker trucks repeatedly replenish the water levels in the two tanks. Those tanks have a combined million-gallon capacity.

Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley said June 4 that repairs to one of the two damaged pumps, which are known as booster pumps, allowed the system late on the afternoon of June 3 to resume the pumping of water from the Wasserman Way pumphouse up to the two storage tanks, which are located several thousand feet away atop a rise at Fairfield Hills.

The gravity-powered water supply system serves the town-owned Fairfield Hills core campus, Nunnawauk Meadows, and the state’s Garner Correctional Institution, among other users.

Mr Hurley said that swift action to maintain the water levels in the two storage tanks meant that water system customers had no change in their water service.

Mr Hurley said that the situation “never rose to the level of an emergency,” noting that the several dozen chlorinated tanker loads of water that were poured into the storage tanks allowed water system users to continue to consume water as they would normally.

It is unclear exactly when the lightning strike occurred, Mt Hurley said.

The lightning damaged electrical lines that provide power to Well #7. That well stopped working and thus did not provide water to the two booster pumps at the pumphouse. After running for a period of time without water moving through them, those two pumps failed mechanically. Consequently, the two storage tanks were not being replenished and the water levels in them dropped to a point which caused the alarm to sound, alerting town staffers of water system problems.

Until electrical repairs can be made, Well #7 will be powered by a portable generator, Mr Hurley said. More than 1,000 feet of buried electrical lines will need to be replaced to provide the well with a normal power supply, he said.

Also, the town will be ordering two new booster pumps to have replacement equipment on hand in the event of another system failure, he said.