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'" \ can be reduced, conservation implementation, and reduction of high per capita use. The update does not reference the existing emergency response plan, nor explain how the two plans relate. COMMENTS BASED ON CONTENT GUIDELINES Part I - Water Supply System Description and Evaluation The City of Ramsey has undergone rapid growth since the first water supply plan was adopted in 1995. Population growth between 1990 and 2000 equals approximately 7,000. An additional 10,000 people are projected to live in the city by the year 2020; this represents a 52% increase from 2000. Water demand information has been updated through 1998. The average daily demand during 1998 was 0.844 million gallons per day (MGD), with a maximum daily demand during the year of2.9 MGD. This represents a maximum-to-daily demand ratio 00.4, which exceeds the American Water Works Association recommendation of3.0. The updated plan acknowledges that anything over 2.5 is considered high. Over the last five years, this ratio has averaged 3.6, which is very high compared to other metropolitan area water utilities. Discussion later in the plan occurs relative to high summer demand and some possible ways to keep it down, but implementation of measures to actually accomplish the reduction are not clear. Average overall per capita water use for 1998 was 125 gallons per capita per day (gpcd). The last five years per capita use has averaged 121 gpcd. Residential-only per capita use cannot be accurately determined from the plan because data on use presented in Appendix D claim that two categories (residential and commercial/industrial) total 100% of use, which is a virtual impossibility in utility operations. Details on the accounting procedure leading to the 100% figure are not presented, but it is quite possible that some invalid assumptions were made concerning the amount of water pumped versus the amount sold. Because of this short-coming, there is no discussion of unaccounted-for water. Knowledge of the amount of water in the unaccounted-for category is essential in defming system operation. If the city does not have this data, it can be easily obtained by comparing water pumped to water sold. Adequate metering of all users in the system should be a city goal to help it defme the condition of the distribution system and identify water losses, which translate into revenue losses. Two conservation elements are mentioned on page 2-6 of the plan. The first is an odd/even sprinkling ban imposed when demand equals 80% offirm well capacity (0.8 * 2.45 MGD = 1.96 MGD), and an educational plan for city water users. The city hopes to decrease the maximum-to-daily demand ratio from 3.5 to 3.0 by using only these two measures. The projections made in the plan assume that residential water use will be higher than normal for the metropolitan area because the community is new and therefore has newer homes that require water for new lawns. Imposing sprinkling restrictions only when demand gets to very high levels is not an efficient way to hold down peak demand during the summer season. Rather, full- time restrictions are easier for the customer to remember and result in smoothing of peaks all summer. As far as new lawns are concerned, a period of leniency should be offered for new lawns, then the customer should be held to the same restrictions as others. The information presented on the infrastructure is good. Locations and descriptions are given for all of the wells and the storage facility. Projections for future well, storage and treatment needs are given. The current well capacity of the city is 4.19 MGD, with a firm capacity of 2.45 MGD. Four more wells will be needed to meet year 2020 demand. A slight discrepancy exists between this projection for wells #5-8 and information presented in Table 8.1 in the Recommendations section. Table 8.1 lists plans for wells through #10 in 2015. A possible explanation for this is the replacement of wells #1 and 2 in the EastWellfield with two other active wells in the West Wellfield if a water treatment facility is built. Some clarification by the 2