‘Insurance’ Policy flows into city

June 01--SAN ANGELO, Texas -- In the 1970s, San Angelo city officials bought rights to the Hickory Sands Aquifer as "insurance" for the future, banked against the possibility the rain-fed reservoir systems some day might not be enough to serve San Angelo.

The future, apparently, is upon San Angelo.

For two weeks in May, the city began bringing in some water through the newly finished 60-mile pipeline connection from the Hickory Aquifer to test blending operations with surface supplies at a dilution of 10 to 1. By fall, officials hope to complete the groundwater treatment facility that will bring the water's radium content to within EPA standards.

The process itself was long and arduous -- as is typical for most water infrastructure endeavors.

Once complete, though, the Hickory's promised 6 to 9 million gallons per day will not be San Angelo's water salvation, but it will put a much-needed patch on the city's short term water woes.

THE HICKORY JOURNEY

City officials approved the preliminary design of the Hickory Aquifer in 2009 -- two years before 2011, when San Angelo experienced a particularly dry and oppressive summer.

Plans to develop a groundwater source had arisen a couple years prior, in 2007, when the city drilled into two different brackish water aquifers nearer San Angelo. Officials determined those sources wouldn't produce enough usable water to justify the cost of developing them, so they selected the Hickory.

The 30-inch transmission main to deliver water from the well fields to San Angelo was complete last fall. The pipeline itself is capable of holding 12 million gallons of water.

The process begins 62.4 miles away in the McCulloch County well fields, where it's pumped from 3,000-foot deep wells to a ground storage tank at the pipeline's high point near the Eden rest area. Once the water pressure is stabilized, gravity will help the water flow down to San Angelo.

Once in San Angelo, the Hickory water will be delivered to the 208-foot-by-133-foot groundwater treatment plant, adjacent to the existing water treatment facility at Metcalfe Street and Avenue K.

The Groundwater Treatment Facility will remove iron and radium from the Hickory water by a flow-through process. The water then will be taken to the clearwell where it's distributed to the rest of the city.

The treated material will be removed and handled by contractor Water Remediation Technologies, which has agreed to give the city a 10-year guaranteed treatment cost of 59 cents per thousand gallons.

THE RADIUM RUMPUS

Since officials declared they would develop a pipeline to bring Hickory water to San Angelo, the project has been inundated with residents' concerns about the naturally occurring radium in the water.

Radium is a radioactive element present virtually in all rocks and soil. It also occurs in plants, animals and water and the general environment.

People expose themselves to radiation all the time when they swallow it in food, inhale it in air and -- at high levels -- when they are screened by X-rays.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 80 percent of radium that is swallowed leaves the body through excretion, and about 20 percent enters the bloodstream and accumulates mostly in the bones. Some of this is excreted through time.

Radiation is measured in picocuries, and the EPA's standard for safe drinking water is 5 picocuries per liter.

According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, consumption of a half-gallon of radiated water above that EPA limit every day for 70 years increases the cancer rate in two of every 10,000 cases.

For years, residents in Brady have been consuming Hickory water for years and city officials said they have not received complaints about it.

Not the case for San Angelo.

Amid some public consternation at the idea of having to drink "radium-infested" water, San Angelo city officials have attempted to assure residents the Hickory water will not pose a threat to public health and safety. When the city initially planned to move forward with development of the Hickory Aquifer pipeline, residents were concerned about findings that Hickory water had a radiation level of about 35 picocuries per liter, or seven times the EPA limit.

Once the radium is removed from the Hickory water, however, it "is way better than Ivie," said Tymn Combest, the city's superintendent of water quality.

The Groundwater Treatment Plant is projected for completion in the fall and will bring radiation levels well within federal drinking standards.

THE HICKORY TREATMENT

The two main components of treatment for the Hickory water will remove iron and radium.

Once the water arrives at the plant, Combest said, it first will be treated for iron.

"Iron is actually dissolved in the Hickory water just like the radium," Combest said.

The water is oxidized, making the iron insoluble and possible to filter.

"We will oxidize it when it gets to the head of the plant," Combest said, after which it is filtered.

After it's filtered, the water is passed through an ion exchange medium. The medium is charged, attracting and removing the radium particles as the water flows through.

The treated material removed from the water will be taken away by WRT. Combest estimated the company will change out the ion exchange filters every few years.

Under the terms of the city's contract, WRT will dispose of the material away from the city.

Once the iron and the radium have been removed from the water, Combest said, the Hickory water in fact is purer than what San Angelo has been drinking.

"It's a lot better than what we're drinking," he said.

Water quality typically is measured by its content of total dissolved solids. Water from O.H. Ivie Reservoir has about 1,100 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids; Hickory water has about 400 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids.

THE HICKORY BLEND

Until the Groundwater Treatment Plant is complete this fall, the city has the option to blend the Hickory Aquifer water with surface supplies if it needs to.

An extra connection in the pipeline would allow the Hickory water to be combined with water from O.H. Ivie and go through the existing water treatment plant.

Initially, San Angelo officials thought the city would have to blend surface water with Hickory water at a 7:1 ratio.

In March, the TCEQ gave the city the green light to blend surface water with the Hickory water if necessary at a 5:1 ratio -- because the average radiation level was lower than officials initially thought.

There are nine existing wells in the Hickory Aquifer, and each well has a different level of radiation. The water extracted from the wells ranges in radium levels from 17 picocuries per liter to 38 picocuries per liter, Combest said.

Radium tests take about a month, Combest said. Officials originally thought the average radiation level was 35 picocuries -- it turns out the average concentration in those nine wells is closer to 25 picocuries per liter.

Bringing the concentration within the federal standard of 5 picocuries per liter is a simple 5:1 ratio, but Combest said city crews can blend it to an even lower concentration.

If the city draws from the three wells with the lowest radiation level, for instance, Combest said, the concentration will be far lower than even federal limits.

"You're blending more like 18 picocuries per liter," he said. "You're getting a number that's a lot lower."

The city began blending surface water with small amounts of the Hickory water early May, at a 10:1 ratio, to set transducer pressures and ensure everything is running well.

Combest said the blending was smooth overall.

Ricky Dickson, director of Water Utilities has said, however, that after these initial tests San Angelo will not use Hickory water until absolutely necessary.

San Angelo can draw 2,750 acre-feet of water per year from the Hickory Aquifer -- or 896.1 million gallons per year -- based on a 1997 court decision. By 2021, that yearly allocation will go up to 5,000 acre-feet and by 2026 it will go up to 10,000 acre-feet.

By comparison, the city uses about 15,000 acre-feet -- or 4.9 billion gallons -- of water per year.

In light of this, Dickson hopes to save as much of the Hickory water that San Angelo has "banked" so far, because it hasn't been drawing from it.

If the city brings the Hickory water in at its projected capacity of 9 million gallons per day, this banked water only would last five years before San Angelo would only be able to use it's yearly 2,750 acre-feet allocation.

LOOKING FORWARD

The Hickory Aquifer Water Supply Project has come a long way. It could go down in the books as a lifeboat to carry San Angelo through some tough, dry years ahead.

The Groundwater Treatment Facility is estimated for completion by the fall and the expansion to 15 wells at the McCulloch County well fields is projected to be complete by March 2015 -- at which point San Angelo would be able to bring on the 9 mgd capacity if necessary.

If the well field expansion is complete as scheduled in March 2015, it will be have been more than five years since the day City Council approved the preliminary design on the project.

Likewise, by March 2015, it will have been more than 40 years since San Angelo's forbears looked ahead and deemed it wise to purchase rights to an underground water source.

According to Standard-Times archives, city officials were considering development of the Hickory Aquifer, faced with drought conditions but were daunted by the almost $40 million price tag at the time.

In a 1984 article, Cloice Whitley, public works director, spoke words that unfortunately ring true for San Angelo today.

"The only dependable water supply for the city would be in McCulloch County," Whitley said in a September 1984 article. "It's the only one we could count on for some years to come. They only way it is justifiable is if it would be the only and final, last source for water."

Right now -- until the city makes significant progress on some long term water projects down the pipe -- the Hickory remains that final source.

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