All city of Ridgefield water customers, including residents, homeowner associations, and businesses, are now required to limit their water usage on an organized schedule as the city implemented stage three of its five-stage water conservation strategy.
The decision to implement stage three in full effect comes as the city is experiencing peak demand on its water supply, prompting the city to implement conservation and efficiency measures. The city of Ridgefield has adopted a new five-stage water conservation strategy to manage peak demand and protect its water system, according to a Facebook post by the city on Monday, June 23. The post added that stage three is a response to the early, sustained stress on the water system.
“What we’re seeing is our water usage from winter to the hottest parts of summer is over three times the usage over winter,” Ryan Thamert, Ridgefield utilities and operations director, said. “So that is definitely tied to irrigation, and part of our water system plan that was passed in November last year included some water use efficiency goals that we wanted to try to slow down the amount of water that people are consuming.”
In the water conservation strategy, Thamert says the city automatically implements stage one in May and runs through the end of September. He explained that Stage One has a lot to do with messaging about ways to conserve water, followed by Stages Two, Three, and Four, tied to the demand for water based on the city’s consumer needs.
“We had an exceptionally dry June with some near 100-degree weather, which did make us trigger our stage three as we rolled out this plan,” he said.
Under stage three, water consumers are not encouraged but required to do the following:
• Water three times per week following an odd/even schedule
Properties with odd addresses like 487 South 56th Place are to water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Properties with even addresses like 230 Pioneer Street are to water on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays
• No filling swimming pools or artificial lakes/ponds
• Use automatic shut-off on all hoses
• Refrain from washing vehicles at home
• Identify and fix all water leaks immediately
The city’s Facebook post states that water is a precious resource, with conservation measures ensuring a sustainable supply of water for the community not only today but for the future.
“Our natural resources, our water, is very important to the city of Ridgefield as is managing our water system,” Thamert said. “And we are rapidly growing our system as the city develops and the water conservation strategy is just one of the methods we’re using to manage the growth of our system.”
The city operates six wells, with five of them located at Abrams Park, which tap into the northwestern edge of the Troutdale aquifer. Thamert says the Troutdale aquifer is shallow as it ranges roughly 100 to 200 feet deep.
The sixth well that the city operates draws from the sand and gravel aquifer located roughly 350 to 550 feet deep, Thamert said.
Thamert ensured the water conservation strategy was not implemented in fear of an aquifer running dry, but rather to promote a common-sense approach to water usage.
“A lot of it is tied to our summers having just gotten a lot hotter and a lot drier than we had seen historically, so people are using a lot more irrigation,” he said. “And again, we have several big projects that are in design or in construction — a very large reservoir on the east side.”
The Ridgefield Eastside Elevated Reservoir Project is scheduled to undergo site demolition of existing structures this summer. The project involves constructing a new water reservoir on 5.3 acres of property acquired by the city in 2024. The reservoir is expected to hold 2 million to 2.5 million gallons of water at full capacity.
Thamert said the city is also working on a new well near the Kennedy Farm subdivision, as well as a 1,000-gallons-per-minute intertie with Clark Public Utilities. He added that the water system expansions and the conservation strategy are all part of the way the city manages the utility side of growth.
“We’re certainly using more water than we have in the past as we add more homes,” Thamert said.
He said the increase in usage is what the city had expected, given the number of new homes and businesses. The rapid expansion of the water system is to meet the growth demand, he added.
