Heat stresses power grid By Cindy Brovsky and Marilyn Robinson Denver Post Staff Writer

July 8, 2000 - While the recent heat wave caused a record use of power in the Denver metro area and some brownouts in Highlands Ranch, residents in Lyons can't even water their lawns.

The town of 1,600 north of Boulder suffered a main water pump breakdown Thursday night causing a water emergency.

Residents were told Friday that no outdoor water use is allowed until the pump is replaced. That means there will be no kiddies running through sprinklers or vehicles being washed at least until Sunday.

A new pump was being flown in from Memphis, Tenn., and should be installed by later today or Sunday. A smaller pump will supply enough water for indoor household use through the weekend.

"Oh, no," said Laura Peters, who returned from vacation Friday to her Lyons home. "We absolutely planned on watering our lawn. There are a lot of households whose lawns are turning brown in this heat."

Town Clerk Terry Andrews said officials received only two complaints of residents ignoring the restrictions. The town notified residents about the water emergency through their reverse 911 system that automatically calls each household.

"People will police each other and have quit watering their lawns as soon as they heard about the water restrictions," Andrews said. "We're not in a panic, but just want to make sure we take precautions while the pump gets replaced."

Temperatures hit the mid-90s in Denver on Friday and are expected to stay in the 90s through the weekend. The heat contributed to a record use of power and a couple of reported brownouts, according to Public Service Company of Colorado.

The power company hit a peak of 5,432 megawatts on Thursday when the temperature hit 101, said spokeswoman Jessica Anderson. The previous record, set June 8, was 5,142 megawatts, she said.

"The city is getting bigger and people are using more power, with their air conditioners, computers - and these are all big users of power," she said.

About 200 households were without power Thursday and a second brownout hit another 200 on Friday, Anderson said. Crews were replacing neighborhood transformers that were overheating and shutting down, she said.

"The load is so high, and because of the heat, they're shutting down," Anderson said. "If we can fix them, we will, but many of them will be replaced."

The power company has come under fire for brownouts in the past, including several that hit the area in 1998. Critics say the company has not planned well enough for growth. But Anderson said there should be no problems supplying power to its 1.6 million customers in the state.

"We're not asking customers to shut down (power) because of the high demand," Anderson said. "We have enough supply. Our problem is with local outages, neighborhood outages."

To handle even more growth, the utility is contracting with power suppliers who will build nine new plants along the Front Range that will add up to 1,500 megawatts of power to its generating capacity by 2005.

The Denver Water Board also reported the highest water consumption so far this year with 478 million gallons on Thursday

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 08, 2000