PORT ANGELES — A city official expects more than four months of drought-related Port Angeles water-use restrictions to be lifted Wednesday if the City Council approves.
“It looks like we will have weekly rains from here on out, so we’re good,” Craig Fulton, city public works and utilities director, said Friday.
But he already is planning for potential drought conditions in 2016 by reviewing if wells should be dug in the city to lessen dependence on the river and by planning for measures to guarantee water continues flowing into the city’s industrial pipeline when river flows are low.
“We’d better prepare for the worst,” Fulton said.
He will recommend that the City Council lift the restrictions when council members meet Tuesday.
The City Council imposed Stage 2 voluntary restrictions June 17 and Stage 3 water constraints Aug. 5 under which residents must limit outdoor watering of lawns and gardens.
The restrictions were imposed to protect Elwha River salmon by lessening the draw on the streamflow.
Fulton said city residents were never in danger of running out of drinking water because the city draws down river water far below the surface.
Mayor Dan Di Guilio said he expects council members to go along with the recommendation.
“If we see [Elwha River] water flows have increased significantly, I would expect the City Council to reduce water restrictions,” he said.
The river was flowing at 700 cubic feet per second Friday, almost three times the Aug. 5 cubic-feet-per-second flow of 246.
The low level of the river this summer allowed water to warm to the point that it compromised salmon habitat.
Salmon have returned to the river for the first time in a century after the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams were demolished in a $325 million restoration project.
Water customers appear to have abided by restrictions since August. Those who live at odd-numbered addresses are to water outdoors only on odd-numbered dates while those at even-numbered addresses must water only on even-numbered dates.
“Definitely, August, September and October water usage for 2015 was lower than 2014,” Fulton said.
Fulton said the recommendation to lift restrictions was coordinated with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, the state Department of Ecology and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which has a salmon-rearing channel and pond fed by the Elwha River.
Fulton said winter temperatures are expected to be higher than normal in 2016 but not as high as 2015.
The Olympic Peninsula has equal chances of above, equal to or below-normal precipitation November through February, according to the Office of the Washington State Climatologist.
But planning already is underway, in conjunction with the Lower Elwha tribe and state agencies, on obtaining an Army Corps of Engineers permit to ease the impact of a potential drought in 2016.
The permit would allow placing 3-foot-by-3-foot gravel-filled “super bags,” as Fulton described them, on the city’s pipeline intake-structure weir, a low dam built across the river to raise the water level.
The bags would limit the water going through a notch in the weir while still allowing fish passage.
The blockage would raise the level high enough to keep the water flowing into the city’s industrial pipeline.
The pipeline serves Nippon Paper Industries USA, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The drilling of well sites within the city limit also would lessen reliance on the river, Fulton said.
The city Utility Advisory Committee and City Council will be briefed on a survey and analysis of the drilling option in the near future, he added.
“This is a first step to determine if there are viable locations for drilling wells,” Fulton said.
“Once we determine there are potential locations for viable wells, then we will take the next step: looking at cost and permits that are required.”
Details on the well-drilling option probably will be presented at the city Utility Advisory Committee’s Nov. 13 meeting and possibly to the City Council at its Nov. 18 meeting, Fulton said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.