New England Acres well adds more capacity for thirsty city

Tooele City’s ongoing quest to secure enough water for continued growth took a big step forward last week with the completion of the $2 million England Acres well. The new well is capable of pumping up to 3,000 gallons of water per minute and storing 1 million gallons in an underground tank.

“One reason we sited the new well and pump house in the northeast section of town was to help with water pressure in that area,” said Paul Hansen, Tooele City engineer. “Generally, we put wells where there is a good source of water and there happened to be plenty of water below England Acres.”

The new well and tank bring the number of producing wells in the city’s water system to 11. Those tanks plus a total of seven reservoirs have a combined capacity of 13.5 million gallons of water. The city has four additional wells in Angels Grove near the mouth of Middle Canyon that don’t produce much water, according to Hansen.

That 13.5 million gallon total may sound like a lot, but during the summer the city goes through 13 million gallons a day, according to Hansen. During the winter months usage is only a third of that.

“The city has enough water rights to meet its current and future obligated demands for water,” Hansen said.

The challenge comes in turning those paper water rights into wet water coming out of the ground.

With the England Acres project complete, the city will turn its attention to developing a water source at the rodeo grounds.

“It takes several years to develop a new water source,” Hansen said. “You have to include time for permitting, investigating sources, and then completing the work once funding is secured.”

In 2007 the city negotiated a deal with Kennecott allowing the city to use some of Kennecott’s unused water rights.

The Utah State Engineer recently approved the change-of-use request for the Kennecott water rights, awarding the city approximately 4,500 acre feet of municipal water per year. The city requires one acre foot of water rights for a single-family residential home, so the Kennecott rights would be enough for 4,500 new homes.

“We are currently exploring potential well sites for the Kennecott water,” Hansen said. The search for a well for the Kennecott water has been conducted primarily in the Pine Canyon area.

In 1990, Tooele City bought a sod farm in Vernon for access to water rights. The city owns about 4,500 acre feet in water rights at the farm. In the future that water could be pumped 36 miles into Tooele, according to Hansen.

Currently the Aposhsian Sod Farm is leasing the property and using the water.

“Many communities in Utah transport water over 100 miles,” Hansen said. “Along the Wasatch Front a lot of the municipal water comes from Vernal. It is not inconceivable that when the demand is there that the water from Vernon could be transported to Tooele.”

The city also uses three sources of secondary, or non-culinary, water to irrigate various city properties.

Water from Middle Canyon is used to water the golf course and when there is sufficient water it is also used on Elton Park. The city owns water shares from Settlement Canyon Irrigation Company that are used to water the cemetery and Tooele City Park. And water reclaimed from the sewer plant is used to water the Overlake golf course.

Even with the new well on-line, Tooele City Mayor Pat Dunlavy is encouraging citizens to continue to follow the city’s water conservation schedule and also to not do any outdoor watering during the hottest hours of the day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. when most of the water is lost to evaporation and does your lawn no good, according to Dunlavy.

Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com