CICERO, N.Y. — Flanked by County Executive Ryan McMahon, the Executive Director of the Onondaga County Water Authority (OCWA) said Friday that conservation efforts are working, and it appears the county has avoided a potential disruption in water services.

“Current levels of water conservation continue to be a key factor in keeping everybody in water…thank you to all of our customers,” said Jeff Brown, Executive Director of OCWA.

Brown also went on to say while repair efforts are underway, it will still be at least two weeks before the transmission pipe is fixed and water can once again begin flowing normally. Metal sheeting being driven into the ground to protect crews should be finished by Friday. Dewatering the area is also a priority to stabilize the ground and make working conditions safe for personnel. After that, the main transmission line is scheduled to be dewatered by Friday January 9, with the new pipe being installed January 16.

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“This could be done earlier. These are projections right now, water conservations efforts could end sooner, but this is our best projection right now,” said Brown.

“More water has gone into the reserves, than has gone out. And that is because of the work that has been done and also the conservation of the community. The reserves when we started this proccess were at 20%, and now they’re 23%, 24%, 25%, so that’s positive,” said McMahon.

“The initial concern about losing water in a section of the community for a period of time, at the current pace we’re going, that’s not going to happen if things continue to go well,” said McMahon.

During Friday’s news conference, OCWA showed several photos of the work site. Those photos showed large, heavy equipment on scene as well as National Grid workers monitoring power lines above the site.

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On Dec. 26, Brown revealed that a few leaks were spotted and repaired ahead of the shutdown. He said those repairs caused a significant drop in water pressure and forced the OCWA to shut the system down. County Executive McMahon warned if water consumption levels did not decrease, as many as 27,000 homes could have been left without water. On Friday, he said those efforts have thus far been successful.

“There was a high probability we would have run out of reserves, and because of the efforts of the community who changed behavior, and today I was out at the distribution site and a couple of residents shared with me different things they were doing. They weren’t doing as much laundry as they normally do and some other things, and that all adds up. And the proof is in the pudding as they say. We had 20% reserves but through this process we were able to increase the reserves because of conservation, and the efforts of all of our partners and the team at OCWA.” said McMahon.

“What could have been a crises now looks like to be a managed process.”

On Friday, a free water distribution site was set up at the Fayetteville-Manlius High School and more than 3,000 cases were distributed. The county says it was done to further conservation efforts and not as a result in plummeting water resources.