MEIGS COUNTY — The Tuppers Plains Chester Water District has issued an emergency water use ban for customers in Salisbury, Chester, Sutton, Letart and Lebanon townships in Meigs County, according to a news release by General Manager Donald Poole.

There are three levels of water conservation, with this being categorized as Phase III. A Phase III mandatory water use ban is the curtailment of all water use except needed for human consumption, maintenance of pets and livestock, health care protection and for sanitation purposes.

A Phase I ban is voluntary, Phase II is a mandatory water ban for specific uses and a Phase III ban is the most stringent of all water use bans.

All areas are also in a boil advisory. When a boil advisory is in effect, customers are asked to boil their cooking and drinking water for three minutes before consumption.

The reason for the conservation is due to an early morning equipment failure at one of the County Road 28 (Bashan Road) pump stations, which was compounded by an eight-inch water main leak in Chester that happened just before noon Wednesday.

The pump station on Bashan is temporarily shut down along with other pump stations from Bashan to East Letart. The shut down should keep areas from losing water during the problem.

Each pump station is equipped with multiple pumps, making a problem like this is high unlikely. One motor at the pump station on Bashan was out for repair when the second motor failed early Wednesday morning.

A new motor is being brought, in and plans were to have it installed late Wednesday evening.

Poole stated that the problem is not related to last week’s power outages in the region. He added that the Tuppers Plains Chester Water District did very well through the outages, with generators running as needed.

Residents south of Lyons Den Road, Bissell Road or Bashan on County Road 28 are affected by the ban and boil advisory.

“We have equipment coming from out of state to complete repairs, we have smaller equipment trying to do the work that larger equipment does, but at this time it is not keeping up,” the statement added. “All higher elevations will experience low pressure first. Your elevation will determine your water loss time if the existing equipment will not handle the demand.”

Equipment was estimated to arrive late Wednesday with installation following. According to Poole, it will take a minimum of 24 hours of pump time to catch up.

The water ban will hopefully be lifted by the weekend, if all goes well, according to the release.