PORT ANGELES — Water, water: Under where?

The city will take preliminary steps to locate a secondary source of domestic water should the Elwha River run low again.

City officials said wells probably can’t replace the Elwha as the city’s primary water source but could supplement it if a drought like last summer’s returns.

The city ended four months of water restrictions Oct. 21, but the El Niño weather forecast for this winter could leave the Olympic Mountains short on snowpack next summer.

Still, it could be seven years before water might flow from wells on the city’s West End, which a pair of hydrogeologists said Tuesday was the best place to drill.

Unwell places

Michael Krautkramer and Burt Clothier of Robinson-Noble Inc., Tacoma, told members of the city Utility Advisory Committee that much of the Port Angeles area offers poor choices for water wells.

Inferior locations include those that overlay bedrock, which groundwater penetrates only through fissures, resulting in flows of 10 to 20 gallons per minute at best, Krautkramer said.

“Unconsolidated sediments” below the surface soil could produce the 500 gallons per minute considered adequate. But even such sediments are found in undesirable places, he said, such as:

■ Sites too near the Strait of Juan de Fuca. If they draw down a “cone of depression,” they can pull sea water into the well.

“You don’t want to be spending your money within a half-mile of the coast because there’s a high probability you’d be bringing in salt water,” Krautkramer said.

■ Sites whose aquifers drain into creeks, which the state Department of Ecology puts off limits as vital to salmon habitat.

“Ecology would be unlikely to allocate water in that setting,” Krautkramer said, although the state might permit it in some places if the city would pump some water back into the creek upstream.

West End wet stuff

The likeliest place to drill would be between the city limits and the Elwha River, he said.

The aquifers there discharge into the Strait, he said, so Ecology would allow pumping.

Port Angeles could offer the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe a trade-off by taking less water from the flowing river and leaving more for salmon, he said.

The area lies within the tribe’s usual and accustomed fishing territory.

Pumping 500 gallons per minute — the standard for an adequate well — from the aquifer could restore 1 cubic foot per second to the Elwha’s streamflow, according to Krautkramer.

“What you’re planning on doing is beneficial,” he said. “It’s altruistic, directly for the benefit of the fish.”

The city contracted with Robinson-Noble last spring when it became apparent that record-low snowpack in the Olympics would reduce Elwha streamflow.

Drinking water was never in danger, city officials said; the hazard was to fish.

Analyzed area

The consultant was asked to analyze Port Angeles-area geology for where the city might find subsurface water.

It examined the logs of more than 750 private wells between Morse Creek and the Elwha.

Besides drought, wells could offer “additional reliability and resilience” in case of a disaster such as an earthquake.

Such wells might be 500 feet deep — much deeper than residential wells — and would supply water only for domestic, not industrial, uses.

The next step is to find suitable sites before buying property.

“Usually a purchase is contingent on getting a water right [from Ecology] and finding water,” Clothier said.

“Property acquisition can be a real heartburn issue.”

Evaluating the locations, buying the sites, securing permits and drilling three to four wells — one or two of which could produce water — could take six to seven years, Clothier said.

The Utility Advisory Committee agreed unanimously to begin searching for sites. The task is expected to cost about $20,000.

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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.