No water shortage in Lacey

Washington governor Jay Inslee may have declared a state-wide drought emergency, but there’s no problem with Lacey’s water supply.

That’s the word from Peter Brooks, the water resource manager for the City of Lacey.

Brooks said he listened to the governor’s message with interest.   He also listened to the cities of Seattle and Tacoma as well as Snohomish County when they said they had no drought concerns this year.

Those are surface water suppliers, Brooks said.  They get some of their water from snow run-off and they’re not having any restrictions.  We get our water from underground sources.

“We don’t anticipate any problems with our water supply,” Brooks said.   “It would take many many years of drought before we have a concern.”

The City of Lacey has 21 wells which can pump about 20 million gallons of water each day.   The city also has storage facilities for about 13 million gallons.

Last year was a dry drought year.   At the peak day last year, city water use hit 13.7 million gallons.  Brooks said he anticipates a continued drought presence this year as well.

The water resource manager did stress that the city needs to keep the alternate watering days.   “It allows us to refill our storage facilities,” he said.