providing safe and affordable water to our local community
As of 3:00pm on Friday 6/4/21 Tooley Water District shut down the lower well (the well that has previously tested high for nitrate levels).
We have been solely operating off the upper well since then.
It will take some time for all the water to clear out of the system. Also, it will take some time for test results to come back.
Tooley Water District is currently utilizing water from the lower well. Click on the following link for details on the risks associated with high nitrate levels in water: https://tooleywater.org/sites/default/files/TooleyReports/Tooley%20Water...
We are having difficulties filling the reservoir. People on the upper section currently have very little water pressure and the upper well can not seem to keep up.
We are turning on the lower well, the well that previously had bad tests for Nitrates. Our latest test taken 5/5/21 was only 5.4ppm which is well below the MCL of 10.
We feel that temporarily turning on this lower well is safe and are doing so now. We will update this page when we turn the lower well back off again.
Edit: 10:38am
I missed a previous test (which was still good). The following represents our recent tests of the lower well:
| Tooley Lower Well | ||
| Nitrate Logs | ||
| Date | Result | MCL |
| 01/13/21 | 3.99 | 10 |
| 01/29/21 | 8 | 10 |
| 02/10/21 | 8.9 | 10 |
| 02/24/21 | 5.06 | 10 |
| 03/22/21 | 7.84 | 10 |
| 04/07/21 | 5.85 | 10 |
| 04/20/21 | 9.6 | 10 |
| 05/05/21 | 5.4 | 10 |
| 05/20/20 | 4.6 | 10 |
We had a circuit breaker pop (twice) at our only well which ran the reservoir dry.
The pump is filling the reservoir now, but is having difficulties keeping up with demand.
If you are watering, please hold off until around 10 or 11am in an effort to let the reservoir fill back up.
Thank you.
We have received the test results from the lower well taken 5/17/21 (just before we switched over to this well). Results came back at 4.6 which is well below the MCL of 10.
This is good news.
Thus, it can be assumed that Tooley Water District never supplied water with nitrates above 4.6 ppm during the entire time we were running on the lower well.
Moving forward we plan to keep this well off until we can better understand the fluctuations, but it is nice to know we currently have a clean backup water source.
We are aware that members that live below the reservoir are experiencing considerable air in their water.
It is believed this is likely related to the new pump that was recently placed. Hiland will perform additional tests during their next scheduled visit. It is not believed this is a concern with regards safety of the water, rather more of an annoyance.
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It is with great sorrow and sadness we must notify you that long time boardmember David Pratt passed away on 5/21/21.
David has been a Tooley Water District boardmember since the 1990's and was our longest standing boardmember.
David and his wife Kay grew up in The Dalles and were married in 1976. David's job took them to Nebraska where he worked for the railroad. In the 1990's they moved back to The Dalles region and David signed up to be a Tooley Water District Boardmember. In those days Tooley Water District didn't outsource to a system operator, rather the board maintained the system themselves. This made for a lot of work for the board. David took on the role of secretary/treasurer. As such he was responsible for maintaining the books, meeting agendas/minutes, and state filings.
Kay says two things were really important to David:
1) His faith in God. It was important to David that all people make peace with God before they leave this earth.
2) Tooley Water District. David really enjoyed and valued his ability to give back to his community through his work with Tooley Water District.
David Pratt will be sorely missed. Our community and water system are much better because of David's efforts.
The upper well is operational again.
Big thanks to Hiland Water, AA Pump Service, and Hire Electric. These contractors collectively kept Tooley Water from ever completely running out of water (we were close a few times).
The upper well has a new pump, motor and nearly 300' of new piping. As AA pump service started into this project they found issue after issue, but in the end they were able to resolve. Hiland Water oversaw the operations while Hire Electric responded very quickly to our desperate call as our lower well's pumps failed. Hire Electric was able to get that well back up and running just before the reservoir ran out of water.
There is still a chance we have Nitrates in our system. Also, Chlorine levels may be a bit high during this transitional time.
We are currently running both wells but plan to turn off the lower well tonight after we have let the new pump run for a bit. We plan to submit a new Nitrate sample Monday and hope to have a result around Wednesday. Until we have an official test back of low Nitrates we should operate under the expectation that Nitrates are still in the water.
We will update this website when we have firm test results of safe water again.
We have yet another issue!
The lower well's pump is now failing. Tooley Water District currently has no ability to pump water.
PLEASE TURN OFF ALL IRRIGATION SYSTEMS AND CONSERVE WATER
We hope to have the upper well working about 5:00 pm.
UPDATE: 2:00PM
The lower well's pump is working again.
The reservoir is full again.
Feel free to irrigate again.
