Well 14

February 21st, 2025

Our contractor completed the development of the service road to the Well 14 location as well as the pad for the drill rig to set up on. The well driller has started to bring in materials for the drilling of the well. This included the well casing materials. The revised schedule for the drilling contractor to start drilling the new well is Saturday, February 22nd and have the drilling completed by Thursday, February 27th. 

February 7th, 2025

We received the final order from the Oregon Water Resources Department (ORWD) approving our request for an additional point of appropriation for the new well. It was back in January 2023 that we filed an application to add the new well as an additional point of appropriation under our existing water right permit G-16885. With the new point of appropriation, T-14146, our water right permit has been given a new number G-18896. A lot of time and effort went into gaining OWRD approval to be able to withdraw water from the new well. This included operating Wells 8-13 in August 2023 in order to be able to complete a partial perfection of 2.4 cubic feet per second (CFS) withdraw from the aquifer for Wells 8-13 (we have different groundwater rights that cover Wells 1-7). Navigating the OWRD process to achieve this milestone has been quicker than most with the process only taking two years.

Speaking of our Water Rights, the City holds three groundwater rights for use up to a total of 5.89 CFS (3.8 million gallons per day) and one surface water right (on Munsel Creek – appropriation point behind the old PW shop on Spruce) for 0.8 CFS (0.5 MGD).

January 24th, 2025

Public Works staff met with Holt Services, Inc. (our well drilling contractor) and GSI Water Services for the pre-construction meeting for the development (drilling) of the new water production well. The pre-construction meeting establishes communication protocols; work days and hours; access to the site and expectations for maintaining the security of the wellfield; formation sampling (sampling of the drill cuttings); and water sampling at the conclusion of the constant rate water pumping test.

December 6th, 2024

We held the mandatory pre-bid meeting for the project on December 2nd. We had four well constructor companies (well drillers) attend the pre-bid meeting. The well constructor’s have until December 9th to submit their pre-qualification materials. The well constructors must be an established business (minimum three years) doing like projects (drilling in a dunal aquifer) and experience and equipment necessary to complete the job. As we have discovered over the years, not all well constructors have the equipment or experience to develop a well in dunes along the coast.