Residents surrounding the lot at 141 E. Camino Real, including some homeowners at the south end of Greenfield Avenue, got a tall neighbor a few weeks ago, a giant water well drill rig that will be with them until late January and maybe even into February.
It’s similar to the Baldwin Ave./Colorado Blvd water well project started in February 2007 and completed earlier this year and it’s the first of two new municipal water well projects in Arcadia (the other to start soon on Longley Way). Each costs about $1.7 million but City staff was successful in finding federal funds to cover much of the cost, including about half of the Camino well project. The wells keep Arcadia water-independent instead of relying on outside providers such as the Water District, which would mean less control and much higher water fees for residents.
The drilling rig at the Camino Real facility is clearly visible behind the homes on Greenfield Avenue (looking south).
The Camino well is being constructed to replace two older wells that were on the same property and were no longer in service and had to be destroyed, according to Arcadia Associate civil engineer Ken Herman, PE. The new well will be 950 feet deep and is expected to produce 2,500 gallons per minute of fresh water to the City’s municipal water supply system. The well drilling should be completed by the first of February and be in service by May. (Story continues below the following video.)
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As for the giant yellow circular reservoir just behind a wall near the sidewalk on the north side of Camino that is visible to passersby, Herman says that concrete tank at the front of the property was the forebay (holding tank) for the original booster pumps that are also part of the Camino Real facility.
This holding tank a few feet north of the sidewalk on Camino Real and visible to passersby over a wall is no longer in use.
These pumps were replaced in 2008 with more efficient pumps and are used to pump water from Camino Real to Orange Grove facility to the north.
With the installation of the new pumps, the reservoir is currently out of service. We are currently evaluating the reuse of the reservoir as either a blending reservoir to help clean nitrates out of the groundwater basin, or to use the reservoir as a holding tank for recycled water. Since the feasibility of both those uses are in early conceptual phases the reservoir will remain in place and out of service until it is determined how to best use it, if at all.
In an information pamphlet distributed to neighboring residents at the start of the project, Lubo Tomaier, P.E, project manager at Arcadia’s Public Works Services Department, who retires at the end of this month, provided this explanation that has Project Description
The new well will be 900 feet deep and 18 inches in diameter. Expected capacity of the well is 2,400 gallons per minute (gpm). This new water well will replace an existing well that has been out of service. Construction contract was awarded to Pacific Hydrotech Corp.
The City of Arcadia has 13 wells in operation that provide water to over 13,500 service connections, or roughly 56,000 customers. The City requires 11,025 gpm to be pumped from the ground in order to meet the needs of its customers. The City gets the water from two underground water basins, which are like huge underground lakes. The Raymond Basin lies to the north and west of the Arboretum and Santa Anita Race Track, and the Main San Gabriel Basin lies to the south and to the east.
Last year, the City Council approved the update to the City’s Water Master Plan. This plan is used to assess the current condition of the City’s water system and provide recommendations for improvements to provide a safe supply of water to residents and businesses for the typical daily water demands and emergency demands such as fighting fires.
The addition of the new well at the Camino Real Facility is one of the recommended improvements addressed in the Water Master Plan and it serves two important needs. The well will provide a new reliable source of water from the San Gabriel Basin which can be used as an alternate source when existing wells are placed out of service due to maintenance, failure or other emergency. The new well will also provide an additional source of clean water to be used to maintain the water quality balance within the City’s water system.
All of the work associated with this project will occur on-site and will not affect the appearance of the site from Camino Real or Greenfield Ave. Within the facility, wellhead equipment, and electrical motor running the turbine pump, will be located in noise attenuating structure. It is expected that future operation of the well will be hardly noticeable and only to residents in the closest proximity of the site.
Project Schedule
The project was just awarded to the low bidder Pacific Hydrotech Corp. Well construction can be divided into two major stages – well drilling and well equipping.
Well will be drilled approximately from early October 2009 to February 2010. The most difficult part is actual drilling – this will be 24-hour operation and must continue without stopping to keep well from collapsing and there will be two ten-day periods of drilling between beginning of October and end of November. Drilling is somewhat noisy. For the drilling, construction site will be surrounded by a noise attenuation wall to keep noise level to a minimum. After drilling, contractor will install well-casing and will run multiple tests to provide design parameters for well equipment.
Well-equipping phase will run from March to July. During well-equipping, well pump and motor will be installed and well will be connected to existing system. All work will be conducted within the Camino Real Facility.
— By Scott Hettrick