Patterson Irrigator

November 20, 2008 Patterson, CA

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Thirsty city turned away by county residents

Written by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator

Saturday, 09 February 2008

Decision on new well postponed while Council considers objections
Homeowners around Orange and Sycamore avenues are worried that a new city well in their neighborhood might leave them waterless.

Patterson City Council sees disaster on the horizon if the city cannot get more water.

On Tuesday, the council decided to delay building a new well in light of residents’ fears.

“There’s no way you can say we’re not going to be affected,” area resident Vicki Gonzalez told the council.

City consultant Cort Abney of the H20 Group said the proposed well’s impact on neighbors would be negligible.

Even if the council had moved forward with plans, the well would likely not be running when peak demand hits this summer.
“We’re going to miss the summer,” Abney said.

The Patterson City Council hopes to put another well close to Orange and Sycamore avenues, but delayed moving forward with the project after neighbors raised fears that their wells would suffer. Photo by John Saiz / Patterson Irrigator

Without the well this summer, the city might not be able to keep up with demand for water. Abney suggested a temporary well could be installed earlier to serve as an emergency backup, but it would eventually need to be replaced with permanent equipment.

Without the new well, Abney warned that the city would need to limit water supplies if any well fails, which has happened the past two years. Last year, the failure caused a shortage of water in some parts of the city. If any wells fail, that would almost assuredly happen again, he said.

“If the largest well fails during summer, it leaves us at an 80 percent,” Abney said.

The likelihood of the city well affecting its neighbors is virtually none, Abney said. The city well would be much deeper than almost all of the nearly 200 wells in the area, so they would not share the same water source, he said. Abney said the two wells that do use the deeper water are too far away from the proposed city well to be impacted.

The neighbors wanted a written guarantee from the city that it would compensate them if the new well impacted their water.
In case the council wanted to do so, city staff prepared an agreement that would make the city responsible for getting water to homeowners should the well have negative impacts.

But staff warned against entering into it and council members were reluctant to get on board, especially because that night was the first time they had seen the agreement.

They were also worried they would be bombarded with people who were blaming the city any time something went wrong with their well, regardless if the city’s well was responsible. As the agreement was worded, the city would need to prove its well was not responsible for a resident’s well failure.

“This is an open opportunity for the city to be attacked,” City Manager Cleve Morris said.

Council members also feared the agreement would set a precedent that the city would have to stick with in the future.
Ultimately, the council decided 4-1 that the decision would need to be made another night. Councilman Sam Cueller cast the lone dissenting vote.

“I think we’ve done our due diligence,” Cuellar said.

To reach John Saiz at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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