Water level in tank fell too low

GOLDEN VALLEY – About 500 homes in the Golden Valley area are currently without water as the county works to resolve the issue.  County engineer Mike Garmon says “If you’re without water service, it’s because you live in an area that has a connection served by our booster station.” This area is roughly all connections along Agua Fria and north of Agua Fria, plus some streets on the west side of the district between Agua Fria and 68.

Garmon adds, “Emergency interconnect was initiated with Valley Pioneer, the neighboring water system, on Saturday.  Unfortunately, the emergency interconnect has not produced enough water to keep up with demand and the tank has continued to drain since Saturday. We began reaching out to water haulers on Sunday morning and discovered there was limited availability.”

Once the tank drained below 10 feet, the county was forced to shut down the booster station on Sunday afternoon. Pressure loss is due to the booster station shutdown. Approximately 500 customers are without water service. The tank needs to be refilled to about 12 feet before the booster station can be restarted. This will take about 244,000 gallons of water. 

The booster station was shut down on Sunday afternoon because the water level in the storage tanks on Teddy Roosevelt got too low. If the booster pumps are run while the level is low, it can ruin the pumps.  In order to restore water service, tank levels need to get back up. The county’s short term plan is to use water hauls to fill the tank.

The tank levels are low because the well broke down on Friday night around 11:30pm. The long term plan is to fill the tank to repair the well. The county’s contractor started disassembling the well on Sunday afternoon. The well is almost 1500 feet deep. Approximately 1200 feet of piping must be removed before the motor and the pump can be pulled to see what’s wrong. This takes a couple days to do.

Each foot in the tanks is equal to about 65,000 gallons. The tank level at around 5 pm yesterday was 9 feet. It needs to get up to about 12 feet before the booster station can be restarted..

There are two 6,000 gallon haul trucks assisting the county with refilling the tank.  It’s estimated that it will take between 24 and 36 hours to fill the tank enough to restart the booster station.  The County is making arrangements to distribute bottled water at a centralized location for customers who have no water service.  The specifics of location will be announced with a press release later today.