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Owners forced to supplement water Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Frank Swarzkopf of Eagle Point fills his pickup-sized tank with water at a White City station to supplement his well at home. He's one of many local residents finding alternative water sources as the drought dries up their wells. Some residents are buying water by the truckload from local water delivery services. By DAMIAN MANN For Jackson County well owners, the drought has hit home. Throughout the Rogue Valley, wells are failing, forcing residents to supplement with water deliveries, buy storage tanks or hire a driller. Wells that might have produced 20 gallons a few months ago have slowed to a trickle as the ground dries out in the hot summer months of one of the worst drought years on record. Water delivery services are working into the night to keep up with demand as hapless well owners discover their only water source is on the back of a truck. "It's crazy out there," said Betty Winningham, of Marie's Water Delivery. "We're just busy all the time." To keep up with demand, the company's three water trucks have been working from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. "We try not to work on Sunday. But the other six days we run full blast," Winningham said. Most of the service's 20-25 daily deliveries of up to 2,000 gallons are due to failing wells, she said. "We've been delivering to every town around the valley," she said. "We go to Sams Valley, Shady Cove, and we're getting a lot around Jacksonville." Some other areas where there have been water problems include White City, Central Point, Griffin Creek, Pioneer Road, Ashland, Eagle Point and Ruch. "We're busier than we've ever been," said Virginia Budden, who runs Plum Valley Water Co. "It's mainly because of the drought and old wells going bad." Plum Valley makes an average eight to 10 deliveries a day. "It's just about all we can handle with two trucks." More ambitious homeowners are making a pit stop at a water filling station in White City rather than paying about $55 to have 2,000 gallons of water delivered. For 25 cents, they can get 210 gallons pumped into the tanks on their trucks. "I haven't run dry, but I don't want to run dry," said Frank Swarzkopf, of Eagle Point. "I want to make sure I've got enough water for the house." This is the first year Swarzkopf has been forced to go to the water filling station at 724 Antelope Road to make sure the trees around his house stay alive. George Kelly was filling up a 325-gallon tank in his truck bed to water horses at his parents' property in Sams Valley. "With the low water and the way things are going, I've been doing two loads a day," he said. "This is the first time my mom and dad have got to do this." The two-inch water hose is connected to the outside of the Crater Lake Electrical building as part of an agreement with the county. Training director Jack Jones, whose office sits next to the filling site, anticipates more than 1 million gallons will be pumped this month, making it the biggest since the facility opened two years ago. So far, this water supply has provided 7.5 million gallons - almost 2 million in the past two months alone. At times, trucks are lined up outside the building waiting to fill up, creating something of a traffic jam even on weekends. "The county talked about putting another water line on the other side of the building to keep up with demand," said Jones. Sylvia Medina, of Medina Well Drilling, said business had leveled off, but her company got another surge of activity recently. "We've got another six to 10 jobs in the last 10 days," she said. "There are two to three more who ran out of water." Siskiyou Pump Service owner Scott Holt said wells began showing lower yields in February. He's found about three to four wells a week with diminished flow, but rarely does he find a complete "duster." He has been installing storage tanks to give customers a little bit of a water buffer. For well owners who have problems, he does offer some advice: "You've got to let the lawn burn - it'll come back next year." Some homeowners have opted for deeper wells, but this, too, has its problems. "You can end up with water quality issues," he said. "You end up drawing water that is what I call 'old water.' It's been in storage so long it's saturated with minerals." And one of these minerals is sulfur, which imparts a rotten-egg smell to the water. With the high demand for water storage tanks, farm supply stores have been having a difficult time keeping them in stock. "We've had a couple of days where we've run out," said Guy Kirkpatrick, assistant manager for Big R in White City. "We've had a lot of calls for even bigger ones than we carry. One guy even asked for a 10,000-gallon tank." Big R farm manager Matt Buma said the store is selling four to five tanks a day, and up to 10 on the weekends. "This is about 10 to 1 over last year," he said. Ivan Gall, regional hydrogeologist with the Oregon Water Resources Department, said, "The number of wells failing doesn't surprise me. In fact, I'm surprised the problem isn't worse." He expects the impacts from this drought to be much more severe than in 1994 - the most recent severe drought year - because of greater development in the Rogue Valley area and greater demand for water from individual homeowners. "Old-timers didn't have the water needs as many people have today," he said. Residents want lawns, gardens and other vegetation as well as swimming pools and hot tubs, he said. Many of the wells that have gone "dry" probably still could produce enough water to handle the minimal needs of a household, he said. Most wells could come back if the Rogue Valley receives normal precipitation in fall and winter, but Gall said it will take two years of above-average rainfall to fully recharge aquifers. Reach reporter Damian Mann at 776-4476, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.