美国国家公共电台 NPR How A 'Perfect Storm' Cut Off Water To This Colorado Town

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

To another story now. This has been one of the wettest years on record so far. Some towns in the West, though, are just a few unlucky incidents away from a widescale water shortage. Earlier this year, faucets¹ in a small western Colorado town ran dry for nearly two weeks. The water is now back on, but it has left residents feeling insecure. From member station KUNC, Luke Runyon reports.

KEN² KNIGHT³: If you want to...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah.

KNIGHT: You could somehow visualize⁴ it then.

LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE⁵: Ken Knight unfurls a map in his office in downtown Paonia, Colo.

KNIGHT: This is the town in - surrounded in yellow.

RUNYON: It shows a sprawling⁶ network of water pipes crisscrossing this agricultural community about four hours southwest of Denver. Knight is the town administrator⁷, meaning he's in charge of making sure its water system works. And earlier this year, it didn't.

KNIGHT: If we had had only one of the things happen at each time, we would not have had a crisis. We had all three things happen, and we had a crisis.

RUNYON: Those three things were two massive leaks and a lingering drought from the year before. It all started on Valentine's Day. A tank that stores the town's drinking water was dropping fast. After a few days of searching for the leak, they found a fire hydrant near the banks of the river that flows through town.

KNIGHT: And the water was going straight through the river rock into the river, so it was not boiling to the surface.

RUNYON: Most of the time when you have a big leak, it pools in the street. But not when it's flowing into a river. So they patched it up. The tank was still dropping. Other burst pipes were draining it. And because the town was coming off 2018's record breaking hot and dry conditions, the mountain springs feeding the tank were running extremely low.

KNIGHT: And I said, OK, we're shutting off.

RUNYON: That meant for more than a week, there was no running water at all for most of the town's 1,600 customers. Instead, the town parked a big water tanker⁸ at Town Hall. And because it was February, people used melted snow to flush their toilets and wash dishes.

The shortage wasn't just hard on residents. Downtown Paonia is lined with brightly colored shops and restaurants to cater⁹ to farm-to-table tourists. Without water, many had to temporarily shut down. Tyler Timbrel manages Living Farm Cafe.

TYLER TIMBREL: I'd say we probably lost about five or six $1,200 days.

RUNYON: That would have been enough money to cover a month's worth of their utilities. Servers and cooks who count on hours and tips were told to stay home.

TIMBREL: It kind of just put the whole town behind it feels like.

DAVID HERZ: And it was incredible, the kind of psychic¹⁰ effect it had on the community.

RUNYON: David Herz had his water shut off on his farm just outside Paonia. He says the town's top priority needs to be fixing its water systems.

HERZ: These infrastructure¹¹ costs are going to go up. I expect that. It's the right thing to do at this point.

KNIGHT: Here's the town. Here's the springs.

RUNYON: Back in his office, town administrator Ken Knight says the water shortage forced tough conversations about the community's future.

KNIGHT: What do we want growth to look like? Do we at some point in time put up the barricades¹² and say not here?

RUNYON: Those questions led to even tougher ones, like whose water use is most important? Who should pay to fix this? And is the town ready for climate change?

KNIGHT: Water is the oil of the 21st century - clean drinking water. People don't quite understand how difficult it is to run a water system so you have clean drinking water.

RUNYON: Even though Paonia is out of drought now, Knight says if other small towns in the West aren't prepared to deal with their aging, leaky infrastructure, he says Paonia's story is a warning of things to come.

For NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Paonia, Colo.

(SOUNDBITE OF LEAVV'S "LIGHTHOUSE (ORIGINAL MIX)")

1 faucets   

n.水龙头( faucet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Water faucets shall be chrome-plated type with ball valve. 水龙头外表为铬镀层。 来自互联网
• The plumber came that afternoon and fixed the faucets in some minutes. 当天下午，管子工来了，几分钟内便把水龙头安装好。 来自互联网

2 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

3 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

4 visualize   

vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想

参考例句：

• I remember meeting the man before but I can't visualize him.我记得以前见过那个人，但他的样子我想不起来了。
• She couldn't visualize flying through space.她无法想像在太空中飞行的景象。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 sprawling   

adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawling in an armchair in front of the TV. 他伸开手脚坐在电视机前的一张扶手椅上。
• a modern sprawling town 一座杂乱无序拓展的现代城镇

7 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

8 tanker   

n.油轮

参考例句：

• The tanker took on 200,000 barrels of crude oil.油轮装载了二十万桶原油。
• Heavy seas had pounded the tanker into three parts.汹涌的巨浪把油轮撞成三载。

9 cater   

vi.(for/to)满足，迎合；(for)提供饮食及服务

参考例句：

• I expect he will be able to cater for your particular needs.我预计他能满足你的特殊需要。
• Most schools cater for children of different abilities.大多数学校能够满足具有不同天资的儿童的需要。

10 psychic   

n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的

参考例句：

• Some people are said to have psychic powers.据说有些人有通灵的能力。
• She claims to be psychic and to be able to foretell the future.她自称有特异功能，能预知未来。

11 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

12 barricades   

路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The police stormed the barricades the demonstrators had put up. 警察冲破了示威者筑起的街垒。
• Others died young, in prison or on the barricades. 另一些人年轻时就死在监牢里或街垒旁。