Water

Public Works manages the contract(s) for the operation and maintenance of the City’s water system as well as the master planning, construction management, and construction of new facilities.

During 2008, approximately 1.015 billion gallons of water were pumped from these wells for residential, commercial, and industrial use. The water for the City of Rio Vista comes from eight wells located at various locations within the City. The water distribution system includes over 18 miles of pipe and two reservoir tanks, each with a capacity of two million gallons.

Well water is cleaner than the surface (river and lake) water. This is because the rains and irrigation fall on the land and percolate through the soil and porous rock until it collects in an aquifer. This may take weeks, months, or years, depending on the geological conditions and frequency of rainfall. So by the time, it’s pumped from an aquifer, nature has done an excellent job of cleaning it up.

However, as water travels over the surface of the land and through the ground, it dissolves naturally-occurring minerals and, in some cases, substances resulting from the presence of animals or from human activity. Because of these possible contaminants, we must monitor, prevent and/or treat for these contaminants so that the water delivered to your tap is absolutely safe. In order to ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Health Services prescribe regulations that limit the amount of certain contaminants in water provided by public water systems. These regulations require extensive sampling and testing. All samples for testing are taken at the wells except the samples for microbiological contaminants, lead and copper which are taken at individual residences. The results of this testing can be found in the Water Quality Report.