An unprecedented yearlong pump test of a deep water well in
Central Kitsap is expected to provide a wealth of new information
about our underground water supplies.
Joel Purdy, hydrogeologist for
Kitsap Public Utility District, checks the flow at Newberry Hill
Well 2, which is being pumped at 1,000 gallons per minute for a
full year. // Photo: Christopher
Dunagan
The 900-foot-deep well, off Newberry Hill Road, will be pumped
continuously for a year, drawing water at a rate of 1,000 gallons
per minute. Drawdown effects of the high pumping rate will be
measured in 56 other wells — including those operated by Silverdale
Water District, Kitsap Public Utility District, the city of
Bremerton, North Perry Water District, Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and
others.
The pump test is designed to better define the extent of
aquifers throughout Central Kitsap while increasing the accuracy of
a groundwater model developed to predict water supplies across the
Kitsap Peninsula.
“This is going to be one of the best data-gathering tests,” said
Joel Purdy, hydrogeologist for Kitsap Public Utility District.
“Hydrogeologists dream of doing this kind of aquifer test.”
It seems as if it has taken forever for someone in Kitsap County
to put treated sewage to beneficial use, but a demonstration
project on Retsil Road in South Kitsap is just around the corner.
Check out my story in
Saturday’s Kitsap Sun.
Darren Noon of Pape and
Sons Construction Co. welds a section of "purple pipe" along Retsil
Road in South Kitsap, the first reclaimed water project in Kitsap
County.
Kitsap Sun photo by Meegan M. Reid
Local water experts were contemplating uses for highly treated
wastewater even before “low-impact development” became a common
phrase for infiltrating stormwater into the ground.
LID has caught on fairly quickly as a method of keeping polluted
stormwater from reaching our streams and Puget Sound. The concept
got an extra push from new stormwater regulations, which have
greatly increased the cost of conventional pipe-and-pond methods of
stormwater management.
The less-touted benefit of LID is groundwater recharge, which
boosts our long-range water supply.
Kitsap County’s Watershed Management Plan (PDF 147 kb),
developed in 2005, estimated that Kitsap County’s sewage treatment
plants release 8 million gallons of treated water into Puget Sound
each day. That’s enough to increase the base flow of 10 streams by
10 cubic feet per second, raise aquifer levels throughout the
county or launch a new industry without touching our drinking water
supplies.
“The most significant barriers to recycling wastewater are the
cost of infrastructure and additional treatment, as well as public
perception,” the report states. “Elected officials in WRIA 15 (the
Kitsap Peninsula) have expressed support for public education about
reclaimed water.”
The report mentions that highly treated effluent from the
Central Kitsap Wastewater Treatment Plant near Brownsville could be
used to supplement streamflows in nearby Steele Creek. But more
recently Kitsap County and Silverdale Water District have begun
working together on a plan to pipe the water into the heart of
Silverdale, where it can be used to water ballfields and
landscaping.
That’s also the initial plan put forth by West Sound Utility
District, as I mentioned in Saturday’s story. Using wastewater for
irrigation cuts down on peak demand, which is what drives water
utilities to drill new wells. Needless to say, drilling deep wells
comes at a tremendous expense — an expense that grows greater as
Kitsap County approaches the limits of its groundwater supplies in
some locations.
To many people, using reclaimed wastewater seems like a novel
idea, especially in an region known for its rain. People remain
squeamish about getting anywhere near sewage water, even if it is
treated. But I don’t believe it will take long for people to accept
the idea of using treated wastewater for irrigation, once they
realize it is treated to basically the same level as drinking
water.
On the other hand, drinking treated effluent becomes another
issue, even though it has been done indirectly for years in many
places. If you live in a town on the Mississippi River, your local
utility may be drawing water out of the river for your consumption
just downstream of where a sewage treatment plant is dumping its
effluent.
There are several other places where reclaimed water is mixed
with freshwater, such as in a reservoir, then drawn back out for
drinking. Ironically, putting the wastewater into a reservoir makes
it seem more palatable, even though it probably was cleaner before.
Treating the water in the reservoir is essentially treating the
wastewater again — although water is just water in the end.
A community in Texas made news across the country last week,
when reporter Angela Brown of the
Associated Press wrote about a new $13-million
water-reclamation plant to turn effluent into drinking water, the
first to be built in that state. Really, it is nothing new, as
Angela herself points out.
What I have not found anywhere so far is a direct use of
reclaimed water. That’s what you would get by pumping the highly
treated wastewater directly into a municipal water system’s piping
network. From a health standpoint, there would be nothing wrong
with that, provided the water could be shut off in the event of a
problem at the treatment plant. No doubt this kind of direct use
will be a little harder to get used to, even in areas where water
is scarce.
Alix Spiegel of National Public Radio does a nice job analyzing
the psychology behind the aversion to using treated wastewater and
why people are more accepting of indirect use. Read or listen to
“Why Cleaned Wastewater Stays Dirty In Our Minds .”
When I first reported that Silverdale Water District was
preparing to install a system of purple pipe for water reuse, it
seemed the district was far ahead of everyone else in Kitsap
County. Recall my story in the
Kitsap Sun March 31, 2008, and the
Water Ways entry that followed on April 2.
A new headworks at the
Central Kitsap Wastewater Treatment Plant is part of major sewer
upgrade designed to reuse the efflent.
Kitsap County commissioners started talking to Silverdale Water
District commissioners a couple months later. See
Kitsap Sun from June 2, 2008, and
Water Ways from June 3.
Now the county commissioners are about to approve a six-year
plan to design and install equipment capable of producing 3.5
million gallons of highly treated effluent every day, as I reported
in
Sunday’s Sun. That’s a lot of water, enough to irrigate
ballfields throughout Silverdale with water to spare.
Now the ball is in the court of Silverdale Water District.
District manager Morgan Johnson told me today that if the district
can be assured of getting treated effluent from the Central Kitsap
Wastewater Treatment Plant, it will move forward on building a
backbone of purple pipe right into the heart of Silverdale.
If the county commissioners on Monday approve the six-year sewer
plan and move ahead with a $41 million bond issue, it will be time
for county officials to begin negotiations with those from
Silverdale Water District. Tying up all loose ends about how much
water will be provided as well as who will pay for what will be
necessary to create one of the largest water-reuse systems in the
Puget Sound region.
Morgan Johnson told me that he was surprised at how quickly the
county commissioners embraced the notion of reusing treated
wastewater, starting with that meeting more than two years ago.
“I was surprised that they’re taking this approach as
aggressively as they are,” Morgan said. “We just need to know what
the county’s schedule is.”
The county commissioners keep saying they are quite serious
about their year-old
“Water as a Resource” policy. Every county department must
report annually about how they are advancing the effort to save and
reuse as much water as possible. In a
sidebar to my main story Sunday, commissioners Steve Bauer and
Charlotte Garrido talked about how this policy can protect the
water resource while saving the county money.
Stella Vakarcs of the Kitsap County Wastewater Utility said she
would like to hold a “water summit” that would bring water and
wastewater officials together to discuss the future of the
effluent.
In addition to the CK plant, county officials are considering
uses for treated effluent from the county’s plant in Kingston.
Meanwhile, officials with West Sound Utility District, which
already produces high-quality effluent near Port Orchard, are
getting ready to use that water for irrigation.
It will take about a year to design the upgrades at the CK
plant. Construction is planned to begin in the summer of 2012, and
the system should be completed about 2016.
If things go well, the purple pipes could be in the ground by
then and ready to be charged with reused water.
Silverdale’s drinking water is second-best in the nation,
according to a panel of three judges at the American Water Works
Association’s national conference in San Diego.
Considering that it took a last-minute tie-breaker to decide the
outcome, I’m going to consider Silverdale’s water as “virtually”
the best in the country. In the final taste-off, two judges picked
water from Macon, Ga., and one picked water from Silverdale,
according to Morgan Johnson, manager of Silverdale Water
District.
For the full story about the taste-off and other winners, check
out the story in
today’s Kitsap Sun.
If you recall, I had a personal interest in the outcome of this
competition, since my home sits on the aquifer where Silverdale
Water District took its sample for the contest. Because of an
experience my wife went through, I have declared her the ultimate
taste-tester, and she thinks our water is best. For details, click
over to my
Water Ways entry of May 26.
Seriously, the water-tasting contest is not very serious. I’m
sure a bunch of wells in Kitsap County contain water that taste
identical to Silverdale’s as far as anyone can tell. And, since no
one source of water wins the contest every year, there is room to
spread the bragging rights around to other locales.
There’s also the issue of how the best water should taste.
Someone commenting at the bottom of today’s story insists that the
best water has no taste at all. Maybe he’s right.
We know that most drinking water contains various mixtures of
minerals. Some contain organic compounds and metals. That’s why
water from one place tastes different from another.
Does anyone know if distilled water has any taste? If it
doesn’t, does that make it the best-tasting water in the world? (I
guess I need to buy some distilled water and offer it to my wife
for tasting.)