Council member talks of La Crosse’s reservoir near disaster

Five-million-gallon tank was nearly empty June 18

On June 18, the city of La Crosse’s five-million-gallon water reservoir dipped down to a six-inch depth.

A slew of reasons as to how it happened has led to some changes in how the reservoir is observed and managed.

City council member Gary Pedesky went public with the information last week when he felt no one in city hall was being held accountable for the possible hazardous water levels.

“This is where the embarrassment would have been to the city – big embarrassment,” Padesky said. “There was a few places in town, if there was a fire that night, and the fire department hooked up, at that time, they would have been sucking air.”

Padesky is relieved La Crosse mayor Tim Kabat is implementing new minimums under which the water level is allowed to go, but says it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

“This is nothing on mayor Kabat,” he said. “As far as city workers, it’s not the lower-level city workers. This is on city management.

“We are going to have set standards for the reservoir, where this won’t happen. Like we used to have back in the old days.”

The water pressure dropped to a third of normal levels before emergency procedures brought pumps online to fill the 20-foot-tall tank.