Spillway splash

The Cullman Times

Sat, May 17 2008

— By Brittany Woodby
BWOODBY@CULLMANTIMES.COM
Ten-year-old Arabella Holsonback fearlessly dipped her feet into the water at the bottom of the Catoma Dam spillway Friday.
“I don’t care if it’s cold,” she said and hopped over the rocks as water poured down the hillside and splashed around her.
“She’s just excited,” her mother Velina Holsonback said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen water come over the spillway.”
But after nearly a year without even a trickle of water, the Holsonbacks’ felt the familiar rumble of water fall over the dam as Lake Catoma reached full pool.
Excitement spread throughout the community as passersby drove slowly past the dam to witness the liberating flow. Since the city’s reservoir reached capacity, officials lifted the conservation mandates which had been on residents since last spring.
“We all concur that it is safe to life the water restrictions,” Cullman Mayor Donald Green said.
Green said he and city water superintendent Junior Heaton and water plant manager David Freeman met Friday morning and discussed the city’s current water situation.
“We felt like the people did such an outstanding job cooperating that we needed to ease their fears a little bit for a while.”
“It’s good because this is the time of year people start watering their grass and filling up their swimming pools,” City of Cullman Water Treatment Plant Compliance Officer Wendy Bray said.
Though the restrictions are lifted, Green said he would still like to ask residents to continue to conserve water as the area remains under drought conditions according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“Everyone has learned to live with less water and we hope they will still practice conservation measures,” he said. “We are still in a severe drought mode and we do need to conserve, even though there are no restrictions at this time.”
Bray said water customers have been using around nine million gallons of water a day since the city dropped down to Phase II water restrictions. In 2007, the plant drew between 10 and 15 million gallons of raw water from the lake daily during the spring and summer months.

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