Aqua Pennsylvania lifts request for customers to conserve water

BROOKFIELD — Aqua Pennsylvania has lifted its request for customers in Brookfield, Hubbard Township and the city of Hubbard and the Shenango Valley area to conserve water.

The request was made Friday as a result of a crude oil spill on a tributary to the Shenango River, which is the water source for the area.

“We want to thank all of our customers for complying with our request, which played a key role in our ability to recover our storage capacity and resume normal operations beginning today,” said Aqua Area Manager Jim Willard. “We also want to offer tremendous thanks to the fisherman who initially notified emergency officials when he happened upon the spill. The timeliness of his reporting kept a bad situation from being much worse. We encourage everyone to be as observant along our watershed and to report things that appear out of the ordinary.”

At about 8:10 a.m. Friday, Aqua was notified by the Mercer County Emergency Management Agency of a crude oil spill on a tributary that feeds the Shenango River—the water source for Aqua’s Shenango water treatment plant. Aqua shut down the Shenango plant to assess the situation and increased monitoring of the plant’s raw water intake as well as its distribution storage.