La Crosse mayor pledges water reservoir levels won’t dip dangerously low again

Five-million-gallon reservoir was 
down to around 100,000 gallons

The city of La Crosse’s five-million-gallon reservoir was down to six inches in mid-June – nearly empty.

That won’t happen again to the 20-foot-deep well, La Crosse mayor Tim Kabat said, after reviewing the situation.

“Two wells that served as backup that would respond in an emergency were offline because of regular maintenance,” Kabat said. “There was also a thunderstorm earlier in the week that knocked out some of the communications. 

“So, you had all these things going on that contributed to the fact that this thing ran dangerously low.”

Water pressure also dropped to about a third of normal, although La Crosse fire chief Gregg Cleveland said it was still at the level where his trucks could hook up to a hydrant had there been a fire – at least until the water ran out.

A report on the low-level mark also indicated a degree of human error but no employees will be reprimanded, according to Kabat.

The city’s water utility calls it a one-time event. Several years ago, those water levels would have been monitored around the clock by water department workers.  

“When it comes to some of those backup functions, that’s where we do need to make sure that we have kind of a double backup,” Kabat said. “(And), in case technology fails, that we still have people that are monitoring and can do the manual operations when we need to.

“I guess the fortunate thing is it didn’t have any negative impacts, and obviously, we’re going to learn from that and make sure there are standards in place so that doesn’t happen again.”

The reservoir typically is allowed to dip to low levels but the city counts on an automated system to fill it right back up again when that happens. But, it’s that automated system that went offline.