By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

THE water outage scheduled by the Navy for the south may affect the whole island, the Guam Waterworks Authority warned yesterday.
The Navy scheduled a series of shutdowns of its water treatment plant starting yesterday, with additional shutdowns scheduled for 8 a.m. on Feb. 28, March 2, 5 and 7.
According to the Navy, the scheduled outages are necessary to facilitate Navy water treatment plant upgrades, which will improve treatment processes and modernize process control instrumentation.
Initially, GWA said only the southern villages of Agat and Santa Rita would be affected by the outage.
But yesterday, GWA issued an island-wide conservation notice effective immediately, with the notice to stay in effect until Thursday morning, March 8.
“The reason for the conservation notice is that we are taking water from our sources in the north to take care of demands in the south because we are not receiving the water we usually receive from the Navy. Thus, we are finding that our reservoirs that feed customers along Route 8, 10, and 15 are very low,” said GWA general manager David Craddick.
He added that GWA plans to extend this conservation notice until the Navy is finished with its maintenance work on the Clearwell at Fena Reservoir, which would be through March 8.
“What we are asking the public to do is to please limit all uses that are not essential. This means no watering of lawns, any and all water blasting, and car washes,” Craddick said.
GWA has also asked the island’s hotels, which are the biggest users of water, to consume wisely especially during the peak times of usage until water is fully restored through the Clearwell at Fena.