Woodway officials Wednesday continued to urge water conservation as they prepared to reinstall one well pump that needed repair and waited for word on a second.
The Tater Hill and Acorn wells are out of service due to electric problems that arose with the pumps over the past couple of weeks, leaving only four wells in use and prompting a call for a 50% cut in outdoor water use to preserve pressure.
The Tater Hill well is out of service as a pump is reinstalled.
“We should have the Tater Hill pump reinstalled tomorrow,” Mitch Davison, director of community services in Woodway said Wednesday. “Then it’s a matter of pumping water through it to cleanse the well and getting bacteriological samples approved by the state lab.”
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The well at Tater Hill, co-located with the Woodway City Shop near Merrifield Drive and Highway 84, is expected to be back in service early next week after $86,000 in pump repairs.
The pump for the well at the end of Acorn Drive has been removed and taken to Jurgensen Pump in Valley Mills for assessment, Davison said.
“If the parts required to fix the Acorn pump will take too long to arrive for repairs, we may just buy a new pump,” Davison said.
Davison expects the repair to the pump for Acorn well to cost between $50,000 and $80,000.
In the meantime, community services and public safety departments both assure residents that pressure will be maintained for firefighting.
Davison said the pumps in question are not directly responsible for maintaining water pressure.
“The well pumps fill the tanks,” he said. “Other pumps on the tanks put water into the system. When the well pumps aren’t refilling two of the tanks, then the other four wells and tanks have to work harder to keep enough volume of water in the system to maintain the required pressure. Or residents can use less water.
“We’re trying not make the system work harder, so we’ve asked residents to reduce their outside use of water.”
Woodway Department of Public Safety Chief Khalil El-Halabi said his officers, who are both police officers and firefighters, have been trained to overcome water pressure issues if the need arises. The agency has an array of responses to employ during firefighting to maintain water flow pressure at the rate required for successful fire suppression, he said.
People affected by low pressure include residents between Estates Drive and Wooded Crest Drive down to Lake Waco, as well as those who live between Estates Drive and Wedgewood/Santa Fe Drive and the lake, the Tribune-Herald previously reported.
The pump repairs are unrelated to the repainting and scheduled maintenance occurring at Woodway’s Bosque storage tank and well.
The Bosque well remains in service and its storage tank can help provide pressure to the some neighborhoods affected near the Acorn well, Davison said.
If residents can cut outdoor use by 50%, the water system should be able to handle remaining demand for drinking, cooking, washing and other indoor uses, a news release from the city of Woodway stated Tuesday.
For the past two weeks the city managed the electrical pump issues at the two wells without the need for additional conservation beyond the ongoing Stage 2 water restrictions, which limit residential sprinkler watering to twice weekly on assigned evenings and mornings. Hand-watering is not restricted.
For more information on the city’s drought contingency plan, visit woodwaytexas.gov or call 254-772-4050.
