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Kalamazoo City director flags higher baseline water production, plans to consolidate wells and expand iron treatment
Summary
City Public Services Director James Baker told the Utility Policy Committee that long-term production trends show higher baseline flows, the city plans to retire many small wells and drill fewer higher-capacity wells, and staff will expand iron treatment to reduce water-quality complaints.
James Baker, Kalamazoo City Public Services Director and city engineer, presented the director's annual water-system and asset-management reports to the Utility Policy Committee on March 12, 2026, saying the system's long-term baseline flow is higher than in past decades and that drought-era spikes around 2007 and 2012 still appear in a 20-year production chart.
Baker said these higher baseline flows, together with episodic drought spikes, inform capital planning: "Those spikes in 2007 to 2012 were water production during drought years," he said, and the city must size treatment and production capacity to meet both normal- and high-demand years. He told the committee the city is programming investments in well fields and station production capacity to address the trend.
The director outlined operational priorities. Staff track water-quality complaints by district and report most issues as iron-related in this groundwater system; only two of the city's 13 treatment plants currently have iron removal. "We are increasing our iron treatment in the system," Baker said, noting a project that consolidates two plants (Stations 5 and 14) into a single treatment plant to expand treatment capacity.
Baker described the city's meter changeout program as roughly 30% complete and called out a steady annual progress rate of about five percentage points, which would reach roughly 50% completion by the end of 2027 if current rates hold. He also said 2025 was an unusually high year for water-main breaks, with about 134 breaks recorded; early 2026 counts are lower so far.
On asset strategy, Baker said the utility plans to consolidate lower-capacity wells: many existing wells average 350'550 gallons per minute (gpm); the plan is to abandon about 30 smaller wells and replace them with roughly 10 new higher-capacity wells (on the order of 1,000'1,200 gpm each) to reduce the number of assets requiring rehabilitation and to provide a wider hydraulic range using variable frequency drives.
Baker noted the utility draws from several aquifers and that aggregate aquifer capacity is large relative to current pumping capability: "If we took all the aquifer capacity of our system it's something near 150 million gallons a day," he said, while system pumping capacity is about 40 million gallons a day. He cautioned that station siting and land availability constrain where new wells can be developed.
The committee asked whether the station consolidation and new plant would change current production numbers; staff said construction is under way but the new plant will not affect system production statistics until roughly 2029'2030 when it comes online.
Why it matters: the combination of rising baseline demand, continued new connections in expanding townships, and concentrated water-quality concerns in outer districts drives the city's capital priorities. The utility intends to focus capital and operational work on iron treatment, well rehabilitation and consolidation, meter replacements, and cast-iron main replacement to reduce breaks.
Next steps: staff will continue design and permitting work for well rehabs and the station consolidation; the committee requested more detailed residential versus non-residential water-use breakouts from audit tables and confirmed the director's report is available for commission review if the council requests it.
