Folsom/El Dorado Irrigation District Emergency Water Intertie Project
Due to the geological location, Folsom Lake is the only source of water supply for the City of Folsom. Since the City only has one source of water, there is concern over the potential for interruption of this water supply. The City has been working with adjoining water agencies to incorporate emergency interties between our systems in the event that there was a water supply interruption to the City or the adjacent water agency.
In 2007, the City constructed an emergency intertie with San Juan Water District, which can provide the City with water to a portion of the City’s western water service area. Since installation of this facility, the City has had a few occasions that this facility was activated to sustain a water supply to the City when service was interrupted. The most recent incident, on February 12, 2009, the collapse of the Natoma Raw Water Pipeline, could have been much more serious had the City not constructed this intertie to deliver water to our system.
El Dorado Irrigation District (EID) and the City have been working together over the last year to develop a joint project that will be beneficial to both agencies. The project includes constructing an intertie to provide some level of reliability for each agency’s water system in the event of an emergency outage. After reviewing the City’s and EID’s water systems, it became clear that a facility could be constructed along Sophia Parkway near Alexander Drive to provide this intertie. This intertie will provide both the City and El Dorado Irrigation District with the ability to provide supplemental water supplies to each other in the event of short term outages in the future (Please see attached map).
The basic principals for use of this facility are to be able to assist each other in the event of an emergency, such as water supply interruption or a distribution system failure resulting in a need for a supplemental supply. The intertie is not to be used as a water supply source for anything other than emergency conditions.
Currently, the City is going through the planning and design process for constructing the emergency intertie. Since the infrastructure will be constructed between Sophia Parkway and Muirkirk Court, an Initial Study and proposed Mitigated Negative Declaration has been prepared and is open for public review beginning on Monday, August 10th (See links below). Once the public review process is complete and a Contractor is selected, the construction portion of the project is proposed to begin in early November and should be completed by mid December.
If you have any questions about the project, please contact Vaughn Fleischbein, Folsom Utilities Department Project Manager, at either vfleischbein@folsom.ca.us or (916) 351-3415.
