Southwest Sierra #59 — Alleghany’s Water Works

This week, I am continuing with the Alleghany water district theme. The official name of the water district: Alleghany County Water District (ACWD) confuses some people. A “County Water District” or CWD is a type of special district in California. The tendency is to associate the first two words more closely than the last three. Ever since the district’s website went up in 2015, ACWD is occasionally contacted by folks from Allegheny County, PA who want to have their water either turned on or shut off! According to the California Special Districts Association, beginning in the 1880s park districts were the first special districts formed in California. Those were followed by toll roads and irrigation districts. Fire Districts and Community Services Districts are both common now.

The water system in Alleghany was built by HL Johnson, the owner of the Tightner Mine. It was completed in 1910 and he still owned “The Alleghany Water Works” when he died eight years later. I recall seeing a notice in a historical copy of the Mountain Messenger, regarding the estate of Katherine Johnson (his widow) and the Water Works were included in her estate. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now to research this topic further. Hopefully in the future I can do more. What I do know is that the water district became a public entity or “special district” on March 8, 1939 as Alleghany County Water District. By coincidence ACWD’s longtime Secretary Donna Hauck was born exactly one year later, March 8, 1940. She served as Secretary starting in 1978, and later added the water billing and bookkeeping to her job description. Her title was never updated to reflect the added responsibility. She served for 37 years.

In SS #4, I mentioned that ACWD began work on a planning grant in 2013 to address both the issue of the aging water tank and the treatment plant which was overdue for an expensive control panel upgrade. A third goal of the planning grant was to identify a secondary water source. For the treatment plan issue, the planning application proposed finding a way to have the Ram Spring (Alleghany’s main water source) reclassified from ground water under the influence of surface water, to just ground water. This would eliminate the need for the treatment plant, saving both time and money.

Prior to 2017 the Ram Spring Water was collected in cisterns on the surface, then run through a Memcor treatment plant before pumping it up to the tank. For years, there had been talk and speculation that if the water could be captured underground, it could be reclassified as ground water. The idea was to drill horizontally into the spring field and install perforated pipes to collect the water underground. In anticipation of being able to do this work, in 2014 I asked Alleghany homeowner and Geologist Raymond Wittkopp to help find a driller. Ray had extensive experience with drillers in the mining industry. He vetted several drilling companies, and recommended Neil’s Controlled Blasting out of the Sacramento area.

Before the Planning Grant was awarded in March of 2015, representatives from both the State Division of Drinking Water and the funding source, Regional Water Quality Control Board State Revolving Fund (RWQCBSRF) urged ACWD to abandon the plan to drill horizontally at the Ram Spring in favor of drilling vertical test wells, to try to find a ground water source at depth. The reason for this was two-fold: The State had zero experience with horizontal drilling, so it was completely out of their comfort zone. They also were aware of the lengthy environmental process that would be required for working in the spring field. If that environmental process could be avoided, it would save a lot of money in the long run. If successful, vertical wells would also eliminate the need for a treatment plant.

The ACWD board was finally convinced to try the vertical test wells with the thought that it could go back to “plan A” the horizontal drilling if the wells did not work out. Long-story short: the vertical test wells that were drilled had disappointing water production and water quality. About half of the $500,000 Planning Grant funds were spent figuring this out. Only a portion of that money was spent on actual drilling, the rest went towards hiring a hydrogeologist for the drilling location recommendations and having the engineering firm put together bid packets and work contracts and things of that nature.

By January of 2017 it was apparent that vertical wells were not a viable option for Alleghany’s water supply. The planning phase for a new water tank had been completed under the same planning grant and a construction grant for a new water tank was awarded on April 13, 2017. In the meantime, ACWD went back to “Plan A” for the Ram Spring… To be continued next week.