The city of Alachua broke ground on its Water Quality and Resiliency Improvement Project on Thursday morning. The new wellfield will include an operations building and a well, to which the city plans to eventually add two more wells.
“I’m very, very proud of the city, the employees we have, the thought train, looking ahead: what do you need 10 years from now, or more than that. And that makes a huge difference,” Mayor Gib Coerper said at the event.
The city’s water supply currently has a capacity of 3 million gallons per day, using one water treatment plant and three wells. Once all three wells are added to the new wellfield, the city expects to reach a capacity for 6 million gallons, according to Tom Ridgik, engineering supervisor and project manager.
The first well, which is the only one that is part of the current project, will be 75 feet deep, tapping into the upper Florida aquifer. To help ensure the city does not deplete the aquifer, Alachua plans to use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to optimize contact tank size. Ridgik said Alachua will be the first in Florida to use CFD to determine contact tank size.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection provided funding for the design, the American Rescue Plan Act helped fund construction, and the city funded the rest.
Alachua began looking into a new well facility in 2021 while looking for a solution to Hurricane Irma’s unexpected effects on the city’s water supply in 2017, according to City Manager Mike DaRoza.
DaRoza said that, while Alachua had few problems with rain damage and flooding, rain in north Florida and south Georgia managed to contaminate the city’s drinking water. Because the current wells are located in karst geology, which is riddled with holes, surface contamination made its way into the supply and left residents without safe tap water for a week.
The new wellfield has “significant geographical separation” from the karst geology, DaRoza said. He said the project will diversify local water supply sources and make the water supply more resilient against extreme weather events.
“Infrastructure just isn’t all that sexy,” DaRoza said. “But like your thumb, you never know just how much you rely on the infrastructure—the lights, the water and especially those toilets until it’s not there for you.”
