The Town of Discovery Bay is not asking its residents to conserve water due to a shortage, it's asking them to conserve while final repairs are made on two of its four ground wells.

Town Manager Virgil Koehne said that despite the fact that the town's four wells passed their wintertime inspections, a few weeks ago two of them began experiencing problems - one, the largest producer at 2,500 gallons of water per minute, shut down completely and the other, due to a malfunctioning part, was only capable of producing 50 percent of its usual payload.

The delay, said Koehne, was due to the shipment of parts to repair the largest producer's severed pipe. "At about 140 feet down, we found a pipe separation."

It was anticipated that this well would be back on line as of press time Tuesday. As for the other well, Koehne said, "Based on the testing - we have lost an impeller (the part which pulls the water up)."

The repair crew has all the materials needed to fix the second well, according to Koehne. He anticipates that well to be fully functional by the beginning of next week.

The water conservation was taken as both a precautionary and safety measure, said Koehne: "Because we are short of water (because of the two downed wells), I have to make sure there is enough water for fire - both in Discovery Bay and Byron."