Prescott Valley outlines groundwater system, smart‑meter rollout and no‑discharge flushing that saved 8.1 million gallons

Scott Keith, deputy utilities director for the Town of Prescott Valley, described the town’s water production, testing and conservation programs during a town-produced PV in Focus episode, saying Prescott Valley relies on groundwater and has deployed smart meters and a no-discharge flushing system to conserve water.

The discussion matters because Prescott Valley sits in a high‑desert region with limited water supplies, and the town’s investments affect system reliability, customer bills and local water conservation efforts.

Keith said the town’s water system is entirely groundwater‑based and runs on a network of production wells, storage tanks and distribution mains. “We’ve got 27 production wells in the system, and we’ve got 400 miles of drinking water…water mains in the system. And then we also have 17 water storage tanks,” he said. The storage tanks are installed at higher elevations so gravity supplies pressure to customers’ homes.

On water reuse, Keith said roughly “it’s about 50%” of residential water use returns to the sewer treatment plant, where it is treated and placed into the town’s reclaimed and recharge system. He said Prescott Valley tests water at varying intervals — monthly, quarterly, semiannually and, for some constituents, every three years — and sends samples to a state‑certified laboratory. “That water is tested…our water does meet or exceed all federal and state drinking water requirements,” Keith said.

Keith described the town’s consumer confidence report — also called the annual water quality report — as a required yearly notice to customers, usually mailed in May or June. He said customers can also find the report on the town’s website under the utilities water‑quality page.

The town has been installing smart meters that can register to tenths of a gallon and detect small leaks, Keith said. About “3 to 4,000” customers remain to be connected to the Water Smart portal; the town has received grant funding to install meter transmitters for those remaining accounts and expects to complete those installations over the next year to a year and a half.

The town also adopted a portable, no‑discharge flushing system called Nodes that filters, chlorinates and monitors flushed water so it can be pumped back into the distribution system rather than discharged to streets or lots. Keith said the flushing program is roughly 85 percent complete and that the town “has saved 8,100,000 gallons” of water since starting the program.

On infrastructure investment, Keith warned that deferred maintenance would increase outages and losses. “If we don’t invest into our system, people will experience more water outages. There’ll be more water main breaks, tank issues, pump issues,” he said, urging proactive replacement and upkeep to avoid larger failures and higher costs to ratepayers.

The episode closed with a note that the town intends to explain how long‑range maintenance and replacements affect rate structure in a future installment.