Newport Beach approves $2.79-million contract for maintenance of wells supplying most of its water

The Newport Beach City Council awarded a $2.79-million contract last week to continue maintenance on wells in Fountain Valley that supply the majority of the coastal city’s water.

The decision to contract General Pump Inc. for the job was unanimously approved as part of the consent calendar during the regular meeting Nov. 19. The company recently completed a tuneup on one of the four wells pumping water from an underground basin beneath Fountain Valley to Newport Beach at a cost of $897,914.47.

The bid the contractor submitted to rehabilitate the remaining three wells was 12.5% less expensive than what engineers had estimated, according to city staff reports. They’ll be tasked with cleaning out pipes reaching between 400 and 800 feet down to the groundwater supply and installing a protective lining as well as new pumps.

Restoring each pump to full capacity should allow them to push 10% to 20% more water than they had been prior to maintenance, Newport Beach Utilities Director Mark Vukojevic told the Daily Pilot Monday.

“Between 75 to 85% of our annual water supply comes from those groundwater wells in Fountain Valley,” Vukojevic said. “That is kind of a common number for a lot of cities that are in this North Orange County area, cities from Newport to Seal Beach all the way up to Yorba Linda, because we’re all part of this groundwater basin.”

A “very large swimming pool” under the Santa Ana River extends from the Anaheim area to coastal Orange County and is trapped by a fault running from Inglewood to Newport Beach. The status of that regional groundwater supply is closely monitored by the Orange County Water District. It was considered nearly full as of this winter thanks to fairly recent rain in Southern California, Vukojevic said.

The wells tapping into the basin beneath Fountain Valley were built in the 1990s. Prior to then, Newport Beach had to import all of its drinking water.

The rest of Newport Beach’s water comes from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a cooperative established by the state Legislature in 1928 to build and operate the Colorado River Aqueduct. It has to be delivered from either Northern California or out of state and is more expensive than what gets piped in from just 7 miles away in Fountain Valley.

“Having the water wells is absolutely key because it’s local, it’s higher quality, and it’s less expensive,” Vukojevic said.