The island water plant was sized for a thousand people and now supplies one thousand three hundred and forty residents plus up to two hundred and ten visitors and about ninety staff who live here for the season.
In the three quiet months this is comfortable. In February it is not, and the council would rather publish the arithmetic than be asked why the pressure drops.
What the council does: the daily production and the daily draw are written on the board outside the office every morning, the second tank installed last year holds a day and a half of reserve rather than half a day, and in the tightest fortnight the guesthouses are asked to fill their own tanks between midnight and five when the household draw is nothing.
The plant itself is not the council's. It is run by the utility, and connections, meters and bills are matters for them. What the council holds is the tank, the standpipes and the pipework it built itself, and the job of telling everybody the truth about the month ahead.
What we ask of guesthouses in February: fill overnight, fix a dripping cistern the week you notice it rather than at the end of the season, and tell the office before you add beds, because ten more beds in that month is a real number here.