Generators protect Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County from disruptions during power outages

Water continued to flow to the more than 120,000 Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County customers, even as thousands of residents continued to deal with power outages caused by recent wind storms.

Authority officials said Wednesday the water system is relying on generators at nine pump stations where power has been lost. Those stations are positioned throughout the service area in Westmoreland, Allegheny, Fayette, Armstrong and Indiana counties.

Because of the region’s hilly terrain, the water system relies on 63 pump stations to push water from treatment plants to storage tanks. Without power, those pumps would not operate and would leave water tanks empty after several days and customers without service, said Michael Kukura, authority manager.

“Those generators provide redundancy in our system so when we do have a power outage we can still provide water to our customers in the system,” Kukura said.

The authority over the last seven years has purchased more than 30 generators, including six in the last eight months at a cost of $585,000.

Kukura said the weekend storms and power outage caused no other disruptions in water service.