Amador County – The Amador Water Agency early Tuesday lifted a request to conserve water in its Upcountry water system, and announced that power had been restored at a pump station. Customers of the Upcountry-area Amador Water System were requested to conserve water in order to stretch the water supply as officials worked into the night Monday to restore power. AWA Interim General Manager Gene Mancebo said at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday that the agency was “lifting the request for conservation,” and was able to get power restored on Monday night. He said due to some control problems, the agency was not able to start making water until some time Tuesday morning, but the plant at Buckhorn was making water early Tuesday. The pumps were reactivated to restore water flow from the Tiger Creek area to the Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant, which serves about 4,000 customers in the Pine Grove and Mace Meadow areas. Mancebo said: “People did a fantastic job in conserving water (Monday), which really helped out,” and the AWA really appreciated that help from its customers. The water agency announced the loss of power early Monday, and requested water usage conservation from its Upcountry customers in the Amador Water System. The storm that struck the region Sunday knocked out power sometime Sunday night at the Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant, Mancebo said, and sometime before 9 a.m. an outage deactivated the transfer pump that feeds the Buckhorn plant. An emergency backup generator kept the Buckhorn plant operating, but the pump, located in a remote area between the plant and the Tiger Creek area, was not immediately fixable. Mancebo said Pacific Gas & Electric Company on Monday was going to try to restore power with switching electricity flows around a fallen high-voltage line. He said the company had a 60,000-volt line down as a result of the storm. The agency was unsure when power would be restored, but various storage tanks in the Amador Water System had water. Mancebo said about 4,000 AWS customers in the Upcountry were affected and faced a potential loss of water, without the conservation. The Amador Water Agency board of directors has its next meeting 9 a.m. Thursday. Among the agenda items is discussion items is getting “emergency generators for the Tanner administration office and shop,” with discussion and direction regarding purchase and installation of emergency generators. Story by Jim Reece This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it