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File photo by Heidi Hoffman/The Ottawa Herald
Wade Mace climbs aboard his water-hauling truck to remove the hose from the Ottawa bulk water point filling station as part of a daily ritual. Mace hauls water to rural residents
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For some, getting water more difficult than turning the faucet
By CLEON RICKEL, Herald Senior Writer
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Water. It's essential to all of us. But pollution and limited resources threaten our water supplies, and a confusing web of entities controls who gets water and how much. The Herald's exclusive, six-part series examines important water issues facing Franklin County.
Every day, Wade Mace steers his big white Peterbilt truck with the dual chrome stacks under the hose of the City of Ottawa's bulk water point between the river dike and the Old Depot Museum.
He jumps out of the cab, takes quarters out of a plastic film canister and feeds them into a slot on the side of the small white pump house.
A quarter buys 48 gallons, slightly more than what Ottawa residents pay.
A two-inch wide stream of water arrows into the top of his shiny, 2,500-gallon stainless steel water tank.
He climbs back into his cab and resumes his reading.
It's a ritual he does five or six times every day.
When Mace started his water-hauling business more than 20 years ago, he figured he would be out of a job by now.
But Mace said he's busier than ever.
Paul Kah, rural Ottawa and a retired Navy veteran, has his own water system but hauls 750 gallons of water twice every week for relatives from the Ottawa water point.
They can't get onto a rural water system and they can't afford to drill a well and see it turn up dry, he said.
"I've got the time and I'm just helping them out," Kah said.
In one of the fastest-growing, most-rapidly urbanizing areas of the state, there are still people who don't have access to wells or public water systems.
So they, or someone like Mace and Kah, haul water.
And the amount that the city sells to water haulers has increased slightly over the years, Scott Bird, Ottawa city clerk and chief finance officer, said.
Larry Walrod, the county planning director, said the county doesn't have a solid number on the number of people who have to haul water.
"But there are a lot," Walrod said. "All you have to do is count the number of trucks with 350-gallon water tanks in the area."
Most people who move from the metropolitan Kansas City area in search of their place in the country don't think about water when they sign a contract to buy rural acreage, he said.
"They don't even think about it," Walrod said. "They're so used to turning the tap and having water come out, the question of water never occurs to them."
The problem was so pervasive that a few years ago, the Franklin County Planning Commission adopted a controversial policy of requiring new developments or homeowners on lots of less than 20 acres to have access to a rural water district or prove that they had wells with water of adequate supply and quality.
Although that has stirred protests from people moving in and some grumbling from county commissioners, the planners haven't budged from that position.
It's not likely that the planners will change the policy, Walrod said.
Most areas in the northwest corner of Franklin County without rural water districts overlay an aquifer that has provided a good source of well water, he said.
Appanoose School, in the northwestern corner of the county, is one of the few remaining schools depending on well water.
"As far I as know, this is the only school in the area that uses a well for water," Rick Smith, Appanoose principal, said.
That will change in a few years because the West Franklin Board of Education agreed in mid-November to apply to join Douglas County Rural Water District No. 5, which serves northern Franklin County.
That district, which buys water from the city of Lawrence, is restricted by the number of customers it can add to its system and has a lengthy waiting list.
School officials acted quickly on the contract because of the narrow time limit.
The school district wouldn't have another opportunity to join the district for another 5 to 7 years, Susan Myers, West Franklin superintendent, said.
"It's time to join the 21st century by joining the water district," she said.
Because the school's well produces enough water of good quality, the school and students haven't faced shortages or had to curtail water use because of shortages, Smith said.
Once in a while, the school will have water shortages but that because the well's pumping system malfunctioned, he said.
The cost of maintaining and repairing the well and pump is the main reason for the switch to the rural water district, he said.
Families with wells often have to monitor their wells on a regular basis and have labs conduct tests on water samples, Walrod said.
Walrod said he's been told that drillers are having to go deeper as they look for water in the county.
And if homeowners' well water becomes contaminated or goes dry, "they're hauling water," he said.
Mace said he'll make two or three trips a week for those families that use an average amount of water -- 5,000 to 7,500 gallons a week.
An older couple, who by long habit, know how to stretch their use of water, use may only need one load a month, he said.
During the summer, Mace makes several runs to fill swimming pools in rural areas, even those households on rural water.
"That's become one of the biggest parts of the business," he said.
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