City needs more water storage

The City of Shelton stores a couple million gallons of water in five tanks, but needs more to meet growth.

"We don't have adequate storage in our reservoir system," Jay Harris, the city's public works director, told the Shelton City Council at its March 21 meeting. "We're having a problem with new development and new connections."

At that meeting, the council voted unanimously to award a $79,985 contract to the firm of BHC Consultants of Tacoma to study the city's water reservoir system and propose options on the current reservoirs and purchasing new storage.

"In total, we need a couple million gallons of storage in the 20-year water comp plan and maybe we accommodate that in different ways, is what we're thinking," Harris said.

Instead of a group of smaller reservoirs, the city can consider a large tank in the Sanderson Field area, he said.

The oldest of the city's water reservoir tanks is the high school tank on the hill above the Shelton Timberland Library, which was built in 1950. The other four are Capitol Hill (1954), Angleside (1967), Mountainview (1972) and Upper Mountainview (2018).

"The high school tank is nearing end of life, 1950, likely it should be brought offline," Harris said.

Divers soon will descend into that tank to evaluate the corrosion and clean out sentiment on the bottom, Harris said.

Of the five tanks, only the Upper Mountainview tank meets earthquake seismic standards, Harris said.

The city also wants to examine potential water systems on the Port of Shelton properties on Johns Prairie and Sanderson Field, he said.

"They have a couple tanks, a couple wells, what would happen if the systems were interconnected for emergency purposes, maybe for longer-term planning purposes, for some industrial growth," Harris said. "We have some water rights there available, to partly serve that area in the future. We've been having some conversations with them, we want to see how it works with a model."