New water district merger brings safe water to Felton

A new water merger is bringing safe drinking water to residents in the Santa Cruz mountains and it’s been decades in the making. The system upgrade also merged the San Lorenzo Valley Water District with the Small Olympia Mutual Water Company. On Thursday, NewsChannel 5 was in Felton to find out what this means not only for safe water but fire safety.

Olympia Mutual Water Company has provided water to 51 residents in this neighborhood for years. Company president Ward Willats lives here too and said this tight-knit community helps one another.

“The bad part about that is that you are responsible for a lot of expensive aging infrastructure,” Willats said.

Infrastructure like a spring house and old pipes dating back to the late 1940s early 50s. Over time, Willats said they’ve had problems. Originally there was only this one small fire hydrant to serve the entire area. Willats said before that, his old neighbor’s house caught fire and burned to the ground because the firefighters ran out of water. Those problems are gone. Fifty-one residents here are now customers of San Lorenzo Valley Water District.

“Very happy that the districts have worked together and I think it’s a great end to a wonderful project and I look forward to serving the brand new customers,” water district manager Brian Lee said.

Work started this past October. The cost over $1 million. Each homeowner will pay $20,000 over the next 20 years.

“The bad part is we didn’t even know where a lot of these pipes were they were put in so long ago. So it was always kind of an adventure trying to keep the system going. So it’s nice to be free of that responsibility,” Willats said.

The project costing nearly $1 million is also expected to improve flows to Zayante Creek, which improves fish habitats in the San Lorenzo River.