IMPROVING NEVADA CITY’S WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM

摘要

The City of Nevada City, California (City) is taking steps to improve its domestic watersupply, treatment, and distribution system. The City, with a population of approximately3,000, is located in Nevada County in the foothills of Northern California, and has a richhistory dating back to the gold rush era in the nineteenth century.The City’s water supply comes from two sources; natural runoff of Little Deer Creekunder an appropriative water right, and raw water purchased from the Nevada IrrigationDistrict (NID), whose service area completely surrounds the City. Water is stored in a 54acre-foot reservoir and treated at a treatment plant with a design capacity of 2.0 milliongallons per day (mgd). Over the past few years water use has averaged about 740 acrefeetper year, or 0.66 mgd. The average per-capita use is about 220 gallons per day(gpd), which is typical for use in California where significant conservation measures havenot yet been implemented. Peak use has been less than 1.40 mgd, well within thetreatment plant’s design capacity. Because the City’s service area cannot grow, thesystem’s capacity should be adequate for many years to come.In 2008, the City began an analysis of the water system with the objectives of reducingwater waste and operating costs, and improving system reliability. The potential for asupervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) project has been analyzed. This paperwill discuss the analysis results and recommendations for improved water supply,treatment, and distribution, reducing spills and development of a SCADA project.Although the City has limited funding for system improvements, there are several lowcostmeasures that are being taken. For more costly measures, plans are being made inanticipation of funding from the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package.