Newport Nearly Drank Itself Dry
A dry month and a heavy hand with the sprinkling can brought the town to the edge of a water famine. The water company has more than doubled the flow from its springs and is digging a reservoir to catch what was running to waste.
During the dry season of the past month Newport has been threatened with a water famine, there being a great deal of water used for sprinkling purposes. Superintendent Sutherland, of the Newport Water Co., has been engaged in the work of further developing the springs, and has met with gratifying success. The water supply has been more than doubled and indications are that even more can be developed. The company will dig a large reservoir to receive the increased flow, some of which is now going to waste.
“During the dry season of the past month Newport has been threatened with a water famine, there being a great deal of water used for sprinkling purposes.”
A private water company racing to double its output before the town ran dry is the small-town version of every modern drought-and-infrastructure story: supply is finite, lawns are thirsty, and the fix is a bigger tank. The detail that stings is the wasted flow — water was already going over the ground while residents worried about the tap. Newport's water system, like most in the West, is still built around storage built in a hurry.
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