Mason creek Utility District has four water wells in three different locations within the district. The four wells can produce over 6,000 gallons per minute of drinking water. The water is stored in five ground storage tanks and one elevated storage tank until it is needed. The total capacity of the storage tanks is 3,440,000 gals.
The Houghton Rd. plant will be taken out of service this fall (2011) to have the storage tanks sand blasted and re-coated inside and out. The plant will be out of service for about 90 days. The new coating will add another five to seven years of service to the storage tanks before they will need to be re-coated. At the same time the tanks are being re-coated the plant will undergo major changes to the electrical controls, the booster pumps and the booster pump motors to make the plant operate more efficiently.
The Galleon Oaks plant suffered a water well collapse in May of 2010. Several attempts to salvage the well failed. The board of directors decided to replace the well with a new one drilled on the existing plant site. The new well, drilled to a depth of 1,450 ft., was started in January of 2011 and will be operational by July 2011. The new well will have the pump set at 700 ft. which will make it the deepest pump setting of all the district's wells. The new pump, rated at 1,500 gpm, will be operated by a new high efficiency 300 hp motor. The plant is getting a new 400 KW generator to operate the plant in the event of power outages. The new generator will automatically switch on if the power goes off and will return to normal operations when the power is restored.
The district will be replacing some of the water main control valves in the older sections of the district. These valves are used to isolate sections of the district to allow for main line repairs. By replacing the old non-working valves, smaller areas of the system will be affected by water outages when the mains need to be shut down for repairs.
