The island’s water and sewer departments got through August, but not with much room to spare.
Reporting by Renee Meyer in The Block Island Times on August 21 laid out the season. Water Superintendent John Breunig put it plainly: “We’re close to the edge.”
The weather helped more than anything the town did. July brought eight inches of rain, which kept irrigation demand down and left July water use slightly below last year. August was drier — two inches through the 17th.
Sewer went the other way. Treatment volume was up on last year. The plant hit 300,000 gallons on five separate days in July, and through August 17 it was averaging 307,000 gallons a day. The plant is about fifty years old. Sewer Superintendent Dylan Chase described operations as “extremely high” and said equipment needs replacing or rebuilding.
Two things are supposed to ease the water side. A new storage tank went in during 2025. New wells are drilled but not yet operational, with completion expected by the end of October. Breunig’s assessment of that schedule: “The timeline for this is very aggressive.”
The same meeting handled allocations for new housing. The affordable housing project on West Side Road near Ball O’Brien Park was granted 2,300 gallons a day. Sixteen units are planned; the first ten will be built with modular construction and are expected to go on sale in April 2027. The Clark House on Calico Hill got an additional 243 gallons a day.
Katie Cass was hired as part-time administrative assistant and clerk, replacing Suzy Milner.
Why it matters to a visitor: none of this changes your week. It changes whose house gets built and how fast. An island that treats 307,000 gallons a day in August on a fifty-year-old plant has a ceiling, and that ceiling is the real constraint on everything from housing to new restaurant seats.