Interim Manager: Conditions Improving In Johnson Utilities Service Area

By Jimmy Jenkins
Published: Tuesday, September 10, 2019 - 3:42pm

The interim manager for an East Valley water company says they made it through the summer without any major outages to customers. 

The Arizona Corporation Commission put interim manager EPCOR in charge of Johnson Utilities in 2018 after repeated incidents of water outages, low water pressure and sewage overflows.

In an update to the commission on Tuesday, EPCOR Operations Director Jeff Stuck said they have bolstered the water supply but there are still pipelines that need to be replaced and increased in size.

“It’s been an exercise in placing data loggers out in the system when we become aware of pressure issues and tracing that back down, looking at line sizes, calculating friction loss,” Stuck explained.

Stuck said they were very concerned during the extreme heat periods this summer but were able to make it through without any outages and there have been no sewer overflows for the past 60 days.

He said EPCOR is still on track to discuss lifting the moratorium on new water hookups in the area by the end of the year.