The New Clark Well & Treatment Plant
Eastsound Water has been in active development of a well site and a treatment facility over the past 4 years. Located across from the medical center, and in front of OPAL’s Wild Rose Meadow development, this new site has the ability to fundamentally change our future access to water resources by doubling our total production capacity. Secondary benefits include creating opportunities to rehabilitate much-needed pieces of our own infrastructure and consolidate our operations to run more efficiently.
This is the start of an email mini-series to explain both the historical context and well and technical detail of this new site. Our hope is that by the end of this series our members and customers will understand the significance of this project, learn about the technical and financial details, and get excited about the future ahead.
A Long-Term Investment in Eastsound’s Water Future
The Clark Well site represents one of the longest-running and most deliberate investments Eastsound Water has made in the future of the community’s water system. Its story begins nearly twenty years ago, when EWUA first recognized that meeting long-term demand would require not only maintaining existing sources, but identifying and securing additional groundwater capacity that could be developed responsibly over time.
At the time this recognition emerged, Eastsound’s water system was performing reliably by conventional measures. Customers received consistent service, water quality met regulatory standards, and the system was supported by a combination of groundwater wells and surface water treatment at Purdue. Yet beneath that apparent stability was a growing awareness shared by operators, engineers, managers and Board members alike: the system had little margin for error. Reliability depended on careful coordination, continuous maintenance, and the assumption that no single major component would be unavailable for long.
Our annual water sales hover in the range of fifty to fifty-five million gallons per year. Meeting that demand annually required the coordinated operation of six separate groundwater wells along with our surface water treatment plant at Purdue Lake on Buck Mountain. Each source had its own operating characteristics, vulnerabilities, and maintenance cycles. The system functioned, but it did so because our dedicated staff were actively managing it — not because it was inherently resilient.
It was within this context that EWUA began to think differently about the future. Rather than asking how to meet demand next year or even five years out, the question became how to ensure that the system could absorb change — growth, aging infrastructure, regulatory shifts, and emergencies — without being forced into reactive decision-making. The answer was not a single project, but a strategy: identify potential future sources early, secure them legally, study them thoroughly, and only develop them when the time was right.
The Clark Well site fit that strategy unusually well. The location offered favorable geologic conditions, physical separation from dense development, and the opportunity to establish protective controls that would remain effective over decades. Just as importantly, it offered EWUA the ability to act incrementally. The site could be secured and studied without committing to immediate construction, allowing decisions to be guided by data rather than urgency.
Establishing Control Without Commitment (2005)
That philosophy took tangible form in April 2005, when EWUA entered into a Joint Well Development Agreement with the Clark family, the owners of the property at the time. This agreement was not simply a permission slip to drill a well. It was a carefully structured legal instrument designed to balance opportunity with restraint.
The agreement granted EWUA permanent rights to access the site and to construct, operate, and maintain a public water well and associated infrastructure within a defined sanitary control area. Those rights extended beyond the well itself to include treatment facilities, electrical service, access roads, fencing, and utilities — everything required to eventually operate the site as a fully functional component of the public water system.
Critically, the agreement was recorded with San Juan County. This ensured that the rights granted to EWUA would run with the land, protecting the public interest regardless of future property transfers, subdivision, or redevelopment. In effect, EWUA secured long-term control of a strategic resource without acquiring the land outright.
What made the agreement especially prudent, however, was what it did not require. EWUA was not obligated to develop the well immediately. Instead, the agreement explicitly tied future action to performance verified through sustained yield testing by a licensed hydrogeologist. If the well failed to meet defined production criteria, it would be abandoned properly. If it performed as hoped, EWUA retained the option — but not the obligation — to move forward.
This structure protected the community from premature investment. It ensured that enthusiasm for a promising site would never override technical evidence, and that member funds would only be committed once the resource demonstrated real, defensible capacity.
Drilling the Well and Discovering the Aquifer (2004–2005)
With legal access secured, EWUA proceeded to evaluate the groundwater resource itself. Between late 2004 and early 2005, the Clark Production Well was drilled and completed under the direction of CR Hydrogeologic Consulting, led by licensed hydrogeologist Craig A. Russell.
The well was drilled to a total depth of approximately 234 feet and completed at roughly 230 feet below ground surface. This depth was not arbitrary. It was chosen to penetrate a confined sand aquifer known to exist beneath a thick sequence of glacial sediments common to the region. These overlying materials — composed of tills, silts, and clays — act as a natural barrier, limiting vertical movement of water and isolating deeper groundwater from surface influences.
Well construction followed best practices for public water supply systems rather than domestic wells. Steel casing was installed through the upper borehole to stabilize unconsolidated materials and prevent vertical leakage. A stainless-steel well screen was installed across the primary water-bearing interval between approximately 165 and 185 feet below ground surface, surrounded by a graded gravel pack engineered to maximize inflow while excluding fine sediments.
Above the producing zone, an eighteen-foot bentonite seal was installed to hydraulically isolate the aquifer. This seal plays a critical role in protecting water quality by preventing shallow groundwater from migrating downward along the well annulus (ring-shaped space between the well casing and the surrounding soil or rock) — a common failure mode in improperly constructed wells.
Once construction was complete, static water levels were measured at approximately seventy-three to seventy-four feet below ground surface. These measurements confirmed that the aquifer was confined and under pressure, rather than unconfined or perched. From a system planning perspective, this distinction matters greatly. Confined aquifers typically respond more slowly to surface conditions, exhibit more stable water quality, and provide a higher level of protection against contamination.
Stay tuned for the next installment soon…
Dan Burke
General Manager
Eastsound Water