Oswego residents are being asked to conserve water during a heat advisory with temperatures reaching as high as 90 degrees. Mayor Billy Barlow says the old infrastructure can’t keep up with the people’s demands to stay cool in the heat.

“This is about the third or fourth time this has happened in the last four years,” said Barlow.

In a waterfront community, it seems odd to ask residents to conserve their water use, but the Port City’s water distribution system is old and overworked.

“We take the water in from the lake, we treat it, and then we can’t get it through the water pipes that were originally built fast enough to get to the homes that need it and are using it,” said Barlow.

It’s a complicated process that starts with Lake Ontario. That water first goes to the treatment plant, where it is processed and filtered, then it’s distributed to water lift stations across the city.

“Those lift stations really recharge it and try to get it up to where the holding tanks are like the water towers in different neighborhoods. That’s where the water is stored until it comes down into your house,” said Barlow.

The daily water flow rate in the city is five to 12 million gallons per day. On hotter days, when water use increases, the system is more likely to slow down causing pressure changes and a potential shortage.

It’s in desperate need of upgrading, but the mayor says it’s too expensive for the budget to fix, so the city does what it can to make improvements. 

“Every year we’ve tried to fix water main breaks as they happen, or even before they happen. What we’ll do is, when we have to go down beneath the surface to fix one main or one pipe, we’ll look around in the general area and try to fix others as we're there,” said Barlow.

That’s why its important residents scale back on their water use.

The mayor says the city has already seen a reduction, but needs people, specifically those in wards 5 to 7, to continue cutting back to keep the system working.