California American Water captures near historic levels of winter rain

California American Water‘s Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) program captured excess winter rainwater from the Carmel River and injected 1,656.42 acre feet of water into the Seaside Basin this winter. The stored water will help alleviate water needs during future dry periods without rain and will reduce future reliance on the Carmel River and Seaside Basin.

Of the 182-day Aquifer Storage and Recovery season, California American Water successfully injected water 157 days when river triggers were met, making this the 2^nd highest ASR injection season since the ASR program began. Flows on the Carmel River must reach certain thresholds to activate the ability to capture excess flows during the ASR season which runs from December 1^st through May 31^st.

“With the last couple years of drought, we rarely received enough rain to reach the state mandated threshold to implement our ASR program, but we were more than prepared to act when the time came,” said Chris Cook, Central California Director of Operations. “To put the feat into perspective, we captured enough rainwater to supply our customers water for more than two months of average demand. This is equivalent to filling over 700 Olympic size swimming pools.”

Infrastructure such as pipes and pumps needed to capture and transport excess river flows, coupled with highly-trained personnel, were utilized to effectively implement the ASR program.