Emergency Groundwater Supply

Background

In 2003, the City developed an exploratory groundwater program to study the City's groundwater sub-basins, establish a more thorough understanding of the hydrogeologic conditions underlying the City, and investigate and evaluate potential future emergency well sites within the City's Urban Growth Boundary. Eight test borings (test wells) have been installed and tested and are being monitored by the City.

In September of 2013, the City completed the Ground Water Master Plan (GWMP). The Plan recommends implementation of near term actions in the first five years following the adoption of the plan, including the following:

Provide and maintain emergency groundwater pumping capacity of 16.3 million gallons per day (mgd) to meet existing and future health and safety demands should water delivered by the Sonoma County Water Agency become restricted or unavailable due to an emergency. The City’s current emergency groundwater supply is about 4.3 mgd.
Continue collecting data via the City’s Emergency Test Well Siting Program.
Short term: Construct four new emergency wells within the next 2 to 3 years.
Long term: Construct several additional emergency groundwater wells to ultimately provide a total of 12.0 mgd of additional emergency supply.

A consultant, West Yost Associates, was retained in 2014 and work began for the emergency groundwater supply program including: well siting, design and construction management services in support of the City’s Groundwater Program.

Current Projects

The City of Santa Rosa is finalizing plans to evaluate site conditions at two locations to determine if the sites can support an emergency supply well. If the site conditions are favorable, an emergency groundwater well will be installed. The two sites being evaluated are the Oakmont Treatment Plant and a newly acquired site on Speers Road.

The purpose of the project is to implement emergency wells to provide the City of Santa Rosa water in the event of an emergency or disconnection to the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA).

The water provided by the wells will support the City of Santa Rosa Water customers, such as hospitals, schools, nursing facilities, homes and businesses. The emergency well would be operated up to 15 days (per year), which would allow for repairs to reconnect to the SCWA transmission line.

The need for these projects was identified in the 2013 Groundwater Master Plan. Currently in the event of an emergency, the City would not be able to meet the City’s water demand.

Multiple locations are currently being investigated to install new emergency wells and to perform needed maintenance to protect the water supply at existing groundwater wells.

Project Documents

Advanced Project Notification

Advanced Notice - English
Advanced Notice - Spanish

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Project FAQs - English (updated June 13, 2017)
Project FAQs - Spanish (updated June 13, 2017)

*Please note that we are in the process of updating the FAQs based on input from the June 21, 2017 public meeting. If you have additional questions you would like addresses please send them to Jennifer Burke at jburke@srcity.org.

Siting Studies

Oakmont Treatment Plant
Rincon Valley (Speers Rd)

Environmental Documents

(PDF)

Construction Updates (srcity.org/CIP)

Oakmont Treatment Plant
Rincon Valley (Speers Road)

Map of Existing and Proposed Emergency Well Sites

Public Meetings

Public Meeting for Proposed Emergency Wells at Speers Road and Oakmont Treatment Plant

Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at 6:00PM at Whited Elementary School

Notice of Public Meeting

Second Public Meeting for Proposed Emergency Well at Speers Road

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 6:00PM at the Rincon Valley Library

    Notice of Second Public Meeting - English
    Notice of Second Public Meeting - Spanish

    Presentation

Third Public Meeting for Proposed Emergency Well at Speers Road

Wednesday, August 16, 2017 at 6:00PM at the Rincon Valley Library

For questions about this project, please contact jburke@srcity.org or call 543-3359.