Paper plates and parties: Thousands of CNYers have to decide how to save water in Christmas week shortage
Central New York residents and businesses affected by a massive water main break have done a lot to reduce consumption and stabilize the system for the last 24 hours, officials said Wednesday.
But people in six towns need to keep it up in order to keep water flowing while the Onondaga County Water Authority replaces a massive broken pipe from Lake Ontario.
And tomorrow is Christmas. So how much is too much water consumption?
Officials have given some basic mandatory restrictions: Limit showers to five minutes. Run the dishwasher with full loads. Don’t wash the car.
But it’s on each resident and business owner to decide what to do.
A garbage hauler has decided not to wash the stinky trucks. A doctor’s office brought in portable toilets. A Manlius coffee shop is using only take-out cups.
OCWA Director Jeff Brown, of Manlius, is washing his laundry at his mother’s house in Camillus.
As a whole, 27,000 customers need to reduce their water usage by about 30%. That includes big commercial customers who can make a big dent with a small change. Byrne Dairy, for example, is trucking in water to DeWitt from a Syracuse hydrant.
Still, about two-thirds of the demand on the water system is from residential customers, Brown said.
“Residential conservation is absolutely critical,” he said.
We asked Brown and Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon for more specific guidance.
Should people move their holiday gatherings to a town that is not affected by the water shortage?
“I don’t think we’re at a point where we’re saying people should leave Manlius to go celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or New Years,” McMahon said.
He encouraged people to be mindful of use of water for laundry and dish washing, but officials have not set specific limits.
As far as household activities go, drinking the water has the lowest impact on conservation, McMahon said.
What should restaurants do?
Restaurants remain open. They need to follow the same health and safety standards as always.
Like residents, they could switch to paper plates, McMahon said.
“Those are common sense things that I think the public will understand for a week or two,” McMahon said.
Brown suggested restaurants wait until someone asks for water instead of immediately setting it out.
“That’s a relatively simple thing that could collectively have some impact,” Brown said.
OCWA Director Jeff Brown explains the repair process for a main distribution line in Cicero that ruptured, jeopardizing water to Manlius, DeWitt and Pompey in Onondaga County and Lenox, Lincoln, and Sullivan in Madison County. Dec. 23, 2025Jon Moss | [email protected]
A pipe rupture in Cicero has stopped water from flowing to six towns: DeWitt, Manlius, Pompey, Lenox, Lincoln and Sullivan. Normally, those towns on average use about 5 million gallons of water a day. To get through the crisis, officials are asking businesses and residents to cut usage to 3.5 million gallons per day.
Officials said Wednesday that the community had reached that goal. But it could take longer than the originally estimated two weeks to repair the massive water line.
There is no dashboard for residents to get information about the flow of water and the impact they have made. McMahon and Brown have released some of that information during live-streamed news conferences each day this week. They do not plan to hold one on Christmas Day.
Have you heard about a business with a creative way to conserve water? Email tips to [email protected].
