Water planners need input

The Ruhenstroth water planning steering committee has been very busy tabulating the results of the survey mailed to neighborhood residents in June. Out of the 545 surveys mailed, just over 160 responses have been returned. If you are like me and still looking for some of the supporting documentation or misplaced the survey, you can still turn it in.

If you need the survey, you can download it from the Web site created by Gary Swift for our water issues at geocities.com/ruhenstrothwater and mail it to the committee. Remember, this is your chance to speak up about possible solutions as well as any concerns or suggestions you have that may help them work toward a viable solution for all concerned. Twenty of the returned surveys had had their water tested and were able to provide the results to the committee. Question four on the survey generated the most discussion since it dealt with possible solutions. In answer to the question on ground water recharge, 37 responded with yes, while 8 said no, and 86 wanted more information before committing to an answer. The second part of the question had to do with hooking up to the county water system. There were 22 yes responses, 76 no responses, and 44 asked for more information before committing.

Rick Oliver explained that they are going to be making static water level readings in wells that people agreed to let the committee measure and will be marking them in a grid pattern aligned with the east-west cross streets to collect some baseline measurements in an effort to further understand the nature of the aquifer(s). This will give us some usage trends as the surveys showed a lot of unexplainable variation in the water levels and water qualities from those 20 or so that sent in their water test reports. Annual measurements can give us updated information; much like the USGS collects on their sites, only on a higher density and localized area. He continued by saying that the next survey or mailing will be to announce a time and date for several of us to take the measurements. We will use the Web site www.geocities.com/ruhenstrothwater as well as this column to announce the time and date for another mailing or phone call. The best time of year to do this is in the spring or fall after most everyone has finished irrigating their lawns and gardens and the wells have had some time to recover so that we can get the highest (i.e. shallowest) levels. We will only measure a well if someone is home that day and they have not been using much water within the longest previous time possible - otherwise we would get inaccurate readings. Then, of course we want to be able to measure those same wells again in later years. Their goal is to do this towards the end of October; and hopefully be able to provide the residents with several weeks' notice.

Have a ramblin' good holiday weekend and be safe.

-- To reach Gail Davis, e-mail RuhenstrothRamblings@yahoo.com or call 265-1947.