CAVE
CREEK – Town council on Monday approved a draft master
plan for the recently acquired Desert Hills and Cave Creek
water companies.
Civil
engineers Tom McLean and Fair Yeager, of consulting firm
CH2M Hill, gave a presentation to council detailing the
current state of the water systems and offered recommendations
on what the town should do to improve those systems in
the short term.
Problems
highlighted by McLean and Yeager include the town’s storage
capacity, only about 750,000 gallons, and high‑pressure
zones. Additionally, the draft report submitted by CH2M
Hill states both systems are “well short of meeting the
projected storage requirements.”
Mayor
Vincent Francia was particularly interested in system
redundencies and how the town could ensure continued service
to customers should a pump station fail, or in the case
of a “catastrophic” event.
Yeager,
who took the lead on the presentation, noted the town’s
main source of supply is CAP water but, in the event of
an emergency, there are several ground wells from which
the town could draw.
Recommendations
for improving the water system in the next year, totaling
more than $6 million, include creating new pressure zones,
which would alleviate high‑pressure problems, increasing
water treatment capacity and creating more booster stations.
A permanent connection with Anthem was also recommended.
Council
commended Yeager and McLean for the clarity of their presentation.
Input from this meeting will be incorporated into the
draft plan and returned to town council for final adoption
at a later date.
The
only other item on council’s agenda was the purchase of
five Dodge pickup trucks for no
more than $115,000. The presentation was made by Town
Marshal Adam Stein, who indicated
none of the trucks acquired with Cave Creek Water Company
and Desert Hills Water Company are usable.
“There
wasn’t a safe vehicle in the lot,” said Stein, going through
a litany of problems in a light‑hearted manner,
much to the amusement of everyone present.
