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Rangely water supervisor warns of low White River flows, proposes turbidity monitor and grant application
Summary
Rangely water supervisor reported historic low flows in the White River and said fire-related runoff could bring highly turbid, low‑quality water; staff plan jar testing, may shut pumps during slugs and will pursue an emergency grant for an online tribometer tied to SCADA.
White River flows recently fell to about 45 cubic feet per second (CFS) on Aug. 9 and had hovered above roughly 60 CFS before rising to about 180 CFS after recent precipitation, Rangely water supervisor Michael told the council. He warned that runoff from upstream fires could send sediment‑laden water to the intake and create treatment challenges.
"If we do see a slug of low or poor quality water, if it only lasts like a few hours, we'll probably be able to turn off our pumps and just let it go by and then resume pumping," Michael said. He described coordinating with the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors multiple upstream points and will notify the town when turbidity spikes are detected.
To reduce risk to the town's treatment system, Michael said staff plan to perform frequent jar testing to optimize chemical dosing and are considering applying for an emergency natural disaster mitigation grant to buy a tribometer that can feed real‑time turbidity data into the plant SCADA so pumps can shut off automatically on extreme events.
Michael gave rough estimates of the town's emergency supply: the low zone has about three days of water under high use if pumps are shut off, winter consumption would extend that to roughly 10 days, and middle/high zones are about five to six days. The town will monitor USGS alerts and, if necessary, suspend pumping during short turbid slugs to avoid contaminant loads arriving at treatment ponds.
What happens next: staff said they will pursue the mitigation grant, continue coordination with USGS and update council on any turbidity events; operational changes such as temporary pump shutdowns will be used as needed to protect water quality.
