Water Facts

• IWD covers 2,520 acres
• We have 30 miles of water line
• We service 1,602 water accounts
• We supply 300 acre feet of finished water per year or 100 million gallons per year
• We produce 6 million to 13 million gallons per month
• Foster Lake, when filled, has 18 million gallons of raw water storage

The District begins the environmental process for well test holes 5 and 6

On Sept. 20, 2005 the Board approved Tom Dodson & Assoc. bid of $15,900 to assist IWD to obtain compliance with CEQA for drilling well test holes #5 & #6. If these wells are converted to production wells an additional $2,500.00 fee will be needed to complete the required filing for the (NOD) Notice of Determination. It is anticipated that the CEQA process will be completed by November and the Board could consider adoption at the December 20th Board meeting. The District would be able to schedule drilling in early spring. These additional new wells could provide between 50-60 gpm (gallons per minute) to help the District combat a future extended drought. The District is looking for both deep water and high ground water level areas for new wells. Hopefully these will produce water even in the worst drought situations. The District’s first phase plan is to drought-proof our well production.

Our current 525 gpm total well production deceased to 250 gpm during the last three-year drought. Currently our maximum daily summer water demand requires 300 gpm (432,000 gallons a day). We need to increase our total well production to 600 gpm minimum so in a future drought our decreased well production will provide at least 300 gpm. During a drought most of the impacted wells are located in the Foster Lake area. The District has contracted with NWAS (NorthWest Aquifer Surveying) of SE California to perform electro-seismic technology to locate usable well water before drilling (see photo on this page).

For the District’s second phase plan we will need to add additional reservoir storage capacity. The District currently has a total storage capacity of 3,630,000 gallons. We are in the process of locating some high-quality used steel tanks for additional capacity. There are industrial strength used steel tanks that, with the required machining work, would produce like-new sheets of steel. Originally these industrial strength tanks have a life of 100 years and will still provide another 75 years of service. Today’s steel tank designs generally last for 50 years. We have additional property at Foster Lake where new tanks could be added to increase necessary water storage, which would provide us three to four weeks of emergency stored water in the event of a major disaster. The District’s Water Master Plan projects will take three to five years to fund and construct to provide the adequate water for our customers.