GOLDEN VALLEY, AZ (May 11, 2021) – The following is a special message to Golden Valley residents from Mike Garmon, Engineer with the County:

“Hello. I’m an engineer for the County water department. I’m making this post for the purpose of trying to provide some detailed information, clearing up some possible confusion and maybe answering some questions as best I can.

First, the most important question is: when will water service be restored?

If you are currently 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.

The booster station was shut down on Sunday afternoon because the water level in our storage tanks on Teddy Roosevelt got too low. If we run the booster pumps while the level is low it can ruin the pumps.

So, in order to restore water service we need to get those tank levels back up. Our short term plan for this is to use water hauls to fill the tank.

The tank levels are low because our well broke down on Friday night around 11:30. So the long term plan to fill the tank is to repair the well. Our contractor started disassembling the well on Sunday afternoon. The well is almost 1500 feet deep. They have to remove about 1200 feet of piping before they can pull the motor and the pump out to see what’s wrong. This takes a couple days or so to do. As of this evening they’ve removed about 1000 feet of piping. We should know what’s wrong with the well tomorrow morning.

On the water hauls, the bulk hauler showed up a little after 4:30 pm this afternoon with two 6000 gallon trucks. However, he informed us that he was coming off a 16 hour shift. So, he delivered 12000 gallons to our tank tonight and will begin more deliveries tomorrow.

Each foot in our tanks is equal to about 65000 gallons. The tank level at around 5 pm was 9 feet. We need to get it up to about 12 feet before we can restart the booster station. As you can see this will take some time to do. I estimate it will take at least a day or so to get the level high enough to restart the booster station. But please know that we are working very hard to get the service restored and get the system back to normal as soon as possible.

Also I want to mention that we are drilling a new well. Some of you may have seen the rig out by our tanks. We started working on the engineering for this project about a year ago. Once the new well is running, the current problem we’re having should never happen again. However, it takes a long time to drill, develop and equip a new well. We probably won’t be finished doing that until some time next year.

I hope this helps with any questions or confusion you may have right now. My post doesn’t turn your water back on, but at least I can give you some information while you’re waiting.”

Thank you, Mike Garmon