Quality concerns force Poway to dump drinking water
A city official this week said that an estimated 550,000 gallons of drinking water were dumped out of a city reservoir on June 9 because the water was no longer safe to drink.
The decision to release the water from the Blue Crystal reservoir into a nearby canyon was made after it was determined that transporting it by tanker truck back to Lake Poway for treatment and redistribution was not feasible, said Assistant City Manager Tina White.
The city sometimes experiences water quality problems at the Blue Crystal reservoir, located off Highway 67 in the eastern portion of the city, White said. Built in 1981, the 700,000-gallon reservoir is not highly used, White said. Decreased demand for water due to residential water conservation efforts have exacerbated efforts to keep water quality within state regulatory limits for chloramines.
“The city makes every effort to avoid draining reservoirs,” White said. “These efforts include moving water around in the system, stabilizing it with chemicals at the tank or perhaps capturing the water in a water truck and transporting it back to the lake where it can be mixed with raw water and treated and delivered again. Unfortunately, we found it necessary to drain the reservoir, clean the tank, and refill the reservoir to bring up the chloramine to maintain regulatory compliance.”
The amount released from the reservoir represented roughly 1.6 acre feet of water, enough to supply three families of four people each for a year.
The city has 19 water reservoirs. White said she thought it had been at a least one year since the city had released water from one. A previous practice of releasing a press statement prior to a water release has been discontinued, White said.
Poway is under a state mandate to decrease its water consumption by 32 percent when compared to 2013 levels. The City Council will be holding a public workshop on water conservation measures and the possible impact of the drought on future water rates at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 16 in the council chambers.
