Some 450 to 500 Shady Cove residents are trying to cope with a third day without water — and with no updates on when service will be restored.

City and Jackson County officials are working to provide emergency drinking water supplies, with water being given out at the Fire District 4 station near the center of town, along Highway 62. The fire district is also providing tanks of non-potable water for residents to collect in containers to use to flush toilets.

Residents who rely on wells, or who otherwise have reliable supplies, are also posting on community forums, offering to fill up containers for their neighbors for drinking or flushing toilets.

Shady Cove Mayor Jon Ball said city officials learned that some 20% of the city’s residents lost water service early Monday. People impacted include customers of 230 homes that receive water service from Hiland Water, one of more than two dozen public water systems that operate in the city.

Ball said city officials were initially unsure how long the outage could last, but had learned that equipment — specifically, a crane — was being sought to perform the needed repairs, which Ball said may not happen this week. With city residents using more than two dozen public water systems, reliability is never guaranteed, the mayor said.

“We have 26 public water systems in Shady Cove, and they constantly are having problems,” Ball said.

“I’m a small systems operator, and we’ve been dry four times this summer, affecting about 14 homes. … This current outage affects about 230 connections, so maybe 450 to 500 people impacted.”

Ball said the situation is not considered a public emergency, nor is it eligible for emergency management assistance since the water system is owned by a private business.

“It isn’t like a situation where we had a flood that knocked out the water pump,” he said Wednesday.

“This was a mechanical failure that happened with a private business.”

Water outages — albeit shorter ones that usually affect fewer customers at once — are common in Shady Cove, which has been grappling with the effects of not having a reliable municipal water system “since the ’70s,” despite repeated attempts to get voter-approval for a citywide municipal system, the mayor said.

“The residents … have voted it down four or five times. They’ve been trying to solve this since the late 1990s,” he said.

“At one point, they could’ve got a citywide system for about $3 million with a 1% debt, and the people voted it down — like, 80% voted ‘no.’”

Ball said, “We have two communities up here with such a bad water situation their homes are worthless,” and local businesses — including the landmark steakhouse Two Pines Family Restaurant — had shuttered due to a lack of reliable water.

While city officials discussed the possibility of shower trailers for residents during the current outage, Ball said the city lacks a location with reliable enough water from which to operate a shower trailer effectively.

“It’s so bad that if we leave the toilets running overnight at City Hall, we walk back in the next day to no water,” he said.

Joel Benton, senior deputy county administrator, said county officials are monitoring the water outage and working with city officials and Fire District 4 to ensure drinking water is available to impacted residents. 

Officials for Hiland Water, owned by NW Natural Water, did not immediately return calls to the Rogue Valley Times on Wednesday.

The most recent update on the outage was posted Tuesday by the city of Shady Cove on behalf of the company. Customers who have water are asked to conserve it, using only limited supplies for cooking and cleaning, and not for irrigation. Usual supplies, the notice stated, call for a 100-gallon-per-minute pump, while a temporary pump can only supply 70 gallons per minute.

A boil water advisory is also in effect while repairs are made.

For updated information, residents are asked to contact Hiland Water at 855-554-8333.

Officials for Hiland Water reported Wednesday evening that they anticipate up to 48 more hours of repair time to replace a pump that will return water service to hundreds of Shady Cove residents.

Jason Cox, public information office for NW Natural, which owns Hiland Water, reported up to 300 accounts — early reports stated just over 200 — are without water.

Customers whose water service was not interrupted remain under a “Boil Water Advisory” until further notice and are asked to limit water use to cooking and cleaning. The notice will remain in effect until pressure can be restored and water samples are tested.

For updates, visit the City of Shady Cove website: https://shadycove.org/nw-national-water-customershiland/ or call Hiland Water, 855-554-8333.

See the Rogue Valley Times’ previous coverage below.