About the District
The District was formed in 1960, with less than a hundred customers. Over the years, a number of small districts merged into Covington Water District, more customers were added as people moved into the area, until CWD reached its current size of approximately 13,000 connections in January 2003.
CWD has a total of 12 production wells at 5 wellfield sites, 18 million gallons of storage in ground level steel tanks at six sites throughout the District, and over 210 miles of pipeline.
CWD's primary water supply is the groundwater allotted to us by our Water Right granted by the State. In addition, we have agreements with the City of Auburn and Seattle Public Utilities to purchase limited amounts of water from them when necessary. In the summer of 2002, CWD began receiving water from Tacoma's second supply project. This supply can bring up to an average of 5 million additional gallons of water a day into CWD. Depending on where you live in the service area, you may receive water from one or more of these sources. The blend can change from day to day, depending on what supplies are available and the level of demand within CWD's system.
CWD also has agreements in place and expects to eventually purchase water from the new regional entity, the Cascade Water Alliance that is planning to develop the Lake Tapps project for fish and people
Managing water resources for existing and future generations and the environment.
CWD is a special purpose district, responsible for distributing the water permitted to it by the State Department of Ecology (DOE) within the service area boundaries (approx. 53 square miles) established for the District in the South King County Coordinated Water System Plan. The Cities of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond, as well as King County, set land use policies, which determine zoning and growth demands for our service area. The District is roughly bounded by SR-18 on the Northwest, Ravensdale on the Northeast, and the Green River on the South. Land use designations in our service area are 11% Agriculture and Forest Production Resource Land, 68% Rural, and 21% Urban under King County Growth Management Policies.
As a water district, we derive our authority from the Revised Code of Washington, Title 57. The CWD five member Board of Commissioners, elected by the customers, has limited power to set policy within the framework of the state statutes, city and county ordinances. All actions of the Board take place in regularly scheduled open public meetings, which are held on the first Wednesday and the third Wednesday of each month at District headquarters at 6:30 p.m., or at specially scheduled public meetings. Customers are invited and encouraged to attend. We are not regulated by the state utility and transportation commission, which regulates private and investor-owned utilities.
Commissioners: T. de Laat, G. D. Holden, D. Knight, J. Stafford, J. Clark
General Manager: Gwenn Maxfield
CWD is in the process of updating it's Emergency Response Plan. The District is also studying and implementing enhanced security of the water facilities. The District is evaluating our various facilities to determine which areas would be most impacted by a major earthquake and how to best mitigate that impact. The District has a number of facilities to operate from, and if any of them receive major structural damage, our operation would continue at another of our locations, consistent with the Homeland Security guidelines.
CWD has purchased additional chainsaws to clear roadways of fallen trees so we can get our equipment to where it is needed, and portable generators to keep pumping equipment running during power outages. As a member of a statewide mutual aid organization, we are in contact with neighboring utilities to share both equipment and staff to respond to a situation more effectively.
To protect public health, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) together with the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) sets the national standard for public drinking water quality. These standards require specific action, including public notification, if levels of certain contaminants are exceeded.
Every year by July 1st, CWD sends to each of its customers a copy of its Water Quality report. If you did not, but wish to receive a copy, please call 253.631.0565 ext 170, during normal business hours (Monday-Friday 8:00am - 5:00pm) or contact conservation@covingtonwater.com.