News & Events

TVWD Begins Testing Aquifer Storage and Recovery Well

Date: 4-16-08 

TVWD will begin testing an Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) well on May 5. ASR consists of injecting and storing surplus treated water into an underground aquifer while water supplies are plentiful, and recovering the stored water during the higher-demand summer months.

For this project, the District selected the Grabhorn Well, an existing well located on Cooper Mountain in Beaverton. Water will be pumped from the ASR well at rates of up to 2.9 million gallons per day (MGD). This will provide approximately 100 days of capacity for use during peak demand summer months. Currently, TVWD provides approximately 23 MGD to customers, with demands reaching as high as 50 MGD during summer.

The District’s consultant, Golder Associates Inc. (Golder), has been assisting with the development of this well. Golder estimates that as much as 300 million gallons of treated water can be stored in the Cooper Mountain aquifer. As a comparison, the current combined total storage capacity of TVWD’s 24 finished water reservoirs is approximately 53 million gallons.

Pilot testing of the ASR well will begin in May and extend into June. During this time, staff from Golder and TVWD will monitor the performance of the ASR well. Full-scale operation of the well is expected to begin in late fall of 2008.

As water supply tools, ASR wells will serve as part of the solution to meet future water demand for the District and for many other water utilities. They provide an economic alternative for increasing storage capacity of surplus treated water. The City of Salem constructed the first ASR well in Oregon in 1996. Since that time, the Cities of Dallas, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, and Pendleton have all constructed ASR wells.

For more information about Aquifer Storage Recovery, visit www.asrforum.com.