Recent water well failures leave Fountain Valley with only two still working

Four of Fountain Valley’s six municipal water wells are down at once with pump failures, and the city is working to bring two back online at an estimated cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.

City Public Works Director Mark Lewis said redundancies in the local water network give Fountain Valley enough water capacity and that residents likely won’t notice the wells’ absence, but “the margin for error is just thinner,” he said.

Workers with contractor General Pump Co. are at a well near Warner Avenue and Newhope Street this week, and after that will address a well at Nieblas Park, a small neighborhood park off Heil Avenue between Bushard and Magnolia streets.

The well near Warner and Newhope, which went down in June, will cost an estimated $15,000 to fix and should be done this week, Lewis said.

The well at Nieblas Park, which failed this month, probably has a more complex issue that isn’t fully diagnosed, Lewis said. The price tag for that hasn’t been determined, he said.

Repairs will be funded by ratepayer dollars.

Interim City Manager John Sibley declared an emergency allowing city staff to pay for the repairs without City Council authorization, though staff will keep the council updated on progress and expenditures.

Fountain Valley has six groundwater wells for all water needs, from drinking to firefighting, plus a connection with the Metropolitan Water District in Garden Grove, though the Metropolitan connection is currently sealed.

The well at Warner and Newhope, which has been in service since 1974, had a mechanical failure in January, which contractor Brithinee Electric fixed at a cost of about $40,000, according to a city report in March. The well had just been put back in service in June when it developed pumping issues and started leaking, leading to its shutdown, according to a report the Public Works Department prepared for the council.

The well at Nieblas Park is the newest in the city system, dating to 2012.

The two failures are the latest in a recent string of well woes for Fountain Valley.

The city identified a well near Coastline Community College last year as needing rehabilitation, and its pump failed earlier this year.

Then a well in Mile Square Regional Park failed in May because of pump and motor issues.

With four wells still online at that time, the city combined planned repairs on the ones at Coastline and Mile Square into a bid package that is about to go out to potential contractors. Work on those two wells should begin in October, according to the city.

With the city now down to two operational wells, “should one of these sources fail, it may not be possible to continue adequate supplies with all of the other wells now out of service without implementing additional emergency actions,” the public works report states.

Those actions could include connecting with supplies of nearby agencies, Lewis said.

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