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Power, water use soar with summer By MARK FREEMAN The Rogue Valley is gulping down water and sucking up electricity at record summer levels during 1999's first heat wave, but the supply of summer's two crucial utilities still exceeds the demand. Monday's frenzied lawn watering and garden irrigating likely will set an all-time consumption record for the Medford Water Commission. And if Monday's water use did not eclipse the record single-day use of 52.26 million gallons, Medford water users are likely to eclipse the mark today, said Ed Olson, Medford Water Commission manager. Olson said the commission supplies water to about 90,000 people, and nearly three of every four gallons used today will go toward outside summer watering. "If you want to have a green yard for your kids to play on, have one," he said. "Just don't water the street." Olson said the crusade to keep lawns green is far more common during a July heat wave than an August one. "Usually, after mid-August, they get tired of watering -- and they also get their bill from watering in July," Olson said. "After a while, they give up." The water system can produce and deliver about 56 million gallons a day. Olson said a $1.8 million expansion at the Duff Treatment Plant planned for later this summer will boost that daily capacity to 71 million gallons. Hot spells translate into record water use in the Rogue Valley, but peak summer electricity use falls far below peak power demand in winter. That's because it takes far more energy to warm a cool house than to cool a hot house, said Claudia Steinbroner, Pacific Power's customer-business manager in Medford. Steinbroner said the Rogue Valley's electricity appetite peaked at about 380 megawatts of power during mid-afternoon Monday. In all, Pacific Power routed 990 megawatts of power to its customers in Southern Oregon and parts of rural Northern California. A megawatt is about the amount of power that the Rogue Valley Manor consumes in a month, Steinbroner said. Steinbroner said hot weather still can create problems for electric utilities. High temperatures cause power lines to sag, just as they do under the weight of snow and ice, and outages can occur when sagging lines contact tree limbs. Steinbroner said Pacific Power has spent about $13 million in a regional tree-trimming program to reduce the number of power outages caused by lines drooping onto trees. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA