The City of Ripon is looking to evaluate a 35-year-old water well near the Ripon Recreation Area of the Stanislaus River Park.

At a recent Ripon City Council meeting, elected leaders agreed to employ Stantec Consulting Services of Walnut Creek to evaluate the condition of Well No. 9, a currently not-in-use potable water well on Reynold Avenue that was constructed in 1989.

No discussion was necessary.

With a depth of 200 feet, Well No. 9 once produced 1,500 gallons per minute of water for the city’s potable water system. In 2007, a coagulation / filtration system was added to the water well to treat the groundwater to levels that were within the state and federal safe drinking water standard.

The capacity of Well No. 9 dropped from 1,500 gallons per minute to less than 500 gallons per minute, which, according to City Administrator Kevin Werner’s staff report, “no longer justified the expense of costly wellhead treatment.”

Stantec is being brought on to evaluate the following options and move forward with:

·         Identifying improvements to the well to increase pumping capacity to a level where it can again become productive – if not possible, they can consider connecting Well No. 9 to the non-potable water system.

·         Evaluating if drilling a new well on the existing site at a deeper depth would produce sufficient water that does not require a wellhead treatment system (essential for safe drinking water) – if a wellhead treatment system is required, Stantec would evaluate if sufficient capacity is available to justify the cost of the wellhead treatment.

Stantec’s proposal consisted of performing a condition assessment of Well No. 9 and a pumping test to assess the aquifer properties and efficiency along with a downhole video log.

The proposal also called for drilling of a test well at a depth of 600 feet to perform water quality testing at the different aquifers.

If the result of the work supports moving forward with a new well at the site, Stantec would prepare the well design along with the technical specifications.

The cost to complete the work as listed in the proposal would be about $194,145, which would be funded by the Water Enterprise Capital Fund.