In search of better fire flow

Big changes are coming to the Medical Lake water system — and nobody will likely notice.

The changes, including a new booster pump at one of the city’s two interties with the state water system, and a new intertie with the city of Spokane will provide fire flow capacity and provide a more reliable water source even as available ground water in the area remains an increasingly dubious prospect.

Medical Lake water currently comes from four wells. Two are owned and operated independently by Medical Lake and feed the city’s 1.5 million gallon reservoir on Olsen Hill.

Two other wells located on Eastern State Hospital property have been shared — reluctantly — between the two entities since the early 20th century. Each of the state wells feed two separate reservoirs, also on Eastern’s campus.

Lacking clear ownership or water right determination for the shared wells, there has long been tension between the city and the state regarding who owns what percentage of the two water sources, at least according to the city’s six-year Water System Plan approved by the City Council at its last meeting.

Medical Lake has long wanted to change that.

“We don’t want to pull more water from the state,” City Administrator Doug Ross said.

Enter the booster pump. An $87,584 contract for its installation by the city’s contractor, General Industries Construction, Inc., on the city’s northern intertie with the state was recently approved by the City Council.

But the booster pump won’t change the amount of water being drawn from state reservoirs. It will instead re-pressurize the city’s 28.7-mile water main system into a single “open system.”

The Medical Lake water system is currently divided into three separate zones due to competing water pressures between the Olsen Hill reservoir and the two state reservoirs. One zone is fed by the Olsen Hill reservoir, a second from the north intertie with the state, and a third from the southern state intertie.

It was because of these separate water zones that city officials were able to isolate homes and businesses impacted by a recent E-coli scare in July. Future contamination issues will impact the entire city water system once the booster pump becomes operational.

The main benefit of consolidating the city water system, however, is fire flow.

By eliminating the individual water zones, more water is available for a longer period of time to combat fires because all three reservoirs will be feeding into a single, consolidated system rather than three individual zones, each being fed by a single source.

But the source and availability of city water won’t change.

Neither will consolidation add any noticeable change in water pressure.

“You won’t see any increase in pressure at your tap,” Ross said.

It’s another project on the horizon, construction of an intertie with the city of Spokane, that will provide additional water volume.

The city currently has capacity for just four new residential water hookups, according to the Water System Plan.

In a letter to the mayor and City Council, engineer Thomas P. Haggerty of E&H Engineering, who produced the six-year Water System Plan for the city, noted “once a home is built, that home has a perpetual right to water; the aquifer, however, is not necessarily perpetual.” He cautioned city officials not to exceed current development levels until the Spokane intertie is completed.

The intertie project is expected to begin next spring, according to Ross.

After the Spokane intertie project is completed the city will gain an additional 200 gallons per minute of supplemental water to be used as it sees fit. That use could include over 200 residential hookups if approved by the city Council, according to Ross.

The Spokane intertie will also include up to 600 gallons per minute of emergency water if needed.

Any declared emergency would require City of Spokane approval.

The six-year Water System Plan is pending approval by the state Department of Health.

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].