District News

 To our valued Customers,

Please find attached our Drought Emergency Plan. This was recently adopted by the Westport County Water District Board of Directors. We are currently in stage 2, going to stage 3 soon. 

The current drought we are in is becoming very challenging. I want to explain the quantity of water and the quality of water we will have during stage 4 of our plan.

As of now we are able to draw water from Wages Creek.  When the flow gets too low to draw from Wages Creek, we will have to rely on our standby well for our water supply. This has never been done for more than a few days in the past. Last August I did some flow and recovery testing. From this data I believe we can draw 50,000 gallons per week for 12 weeks. But that was last August not this year with our continuing drought situation. This means our well water supply is not guaranteed for an extended amount of time. We will only know when we start using the well.

The well water quality has been tested every year and all required testing is up to date. The manganese levels of the well water have been very high. This is a secondary standard. The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) District Engineer and I are likely to put out a health advisory regarding this water. This will happen before we start using it and after some more testing.

Stage 3 is designed to get us into the conservation mode and prepare us for stage 4.

Stage 4 will be very challenging for us. If all our residential customers use only 50% of their baseline that will be 195,000 gallons. If all our commercial customers use 50% of their base line that will be 128,000 gallons based on October 2020 numbers. This total is 323,000 gallons, 123,000 gallons more than our well will give us. This demonstrates that the mindset must be to use as little water as possible and not the mindset of using up to your allotted amount. With this said I still believe the plan will work. 

If the fire protection levels cannot be maintained in our tanks, more restrictive measures will be needed.

We are all in this together and everyone’s help will be needed. We do not want to restrict or shut off anyone’s water. 

Water is a necessity and also has become a luxury in our society. We need to reduce the luxury usage to maintain the water we need for good health.

John Morrill

WCWD Operations Manager and Chief Plant Operator