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Record GP ups water use by 20%Westernport Water said supplies coped well with the record influx of bike-fans this weekend, with about a 20% increase on average October water use. By Susan Webster - 15th October 2007 - Back to News The region used 26.8ML from Thursday to Sunday, compared with an average 21.4ML for this time of year.
The figure was up slightly on last year’s GP weekend use of 25ML, an increase of 7.2%. However, Westernport Water’s Managing Director David Mawer said the increase was actually much lower. "A water main supplying Corinella, Coronet Bay and Tenby Point burst early on Saturday morning. It was an unexpected incident and one that our crews fixed rapidly. If you allow for the pipe burst and the six hours of pipe flushing that followed, the increase in water use over last year’s total was only 3.67%.
"We estimate the burst main meant the loss of about 850,000 litres. If our staff hadn’t have moved so quickly it would have been much worse.
"We thank our repair crew, Peter ‘Skeeta’ Brown and Noel Roulston, who answered the automatic burst pipe alarm at 4.16am in cold, rainy and windy conditions. They worked quickly to fix the problem by about 9.30am, restoring full supply to about 1000 affected properties.
"We thank them for their effort; it prevented major water loss on such a critical weekend, and we continue to praise our customers for their ongoing restraint with their water use.
"Our visitors also appear to have picked up the water-saving message. The figures show there’s a new appreciation of how precious our water is. Casey Stoner wasn’t the only winner this weekend."
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: susanw@ptarmigan.com.au

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