There are 36 “water workers” at Irvine Ranch Water District on the job 365 days a year without rest. They are not easily seen, but are there nonetheless, providing drinking water for customers, in addition to fire flow protection. They are the 36 potable water reservoirs dotted throughout the IRWD service area.

“Elevation is the key,” said IRWD Water Operations Manager Tom Roberts. “Because of their elevation, reservoirs provide water pressure for the system and a reserve supply in case of a power outage or other emergencies. Additionally, tank reservoirs provide adequate flow for fire fighting.”

IRWD reservoirs are designed to be non-intrusive and blend into their surroundings.  They can be constructed of steel or concrete and take many shapes. Most reservoirs in the IRWD service area are round tanks and many are even built partially submerged with only a few feet exposed above ground. One concrete reservoir in Shady Canyon is rectangular because of the shape of the property where it was built. It’s also painted green to blend into the hillside. A reservoir in Newport Coast is completely buried and not visible at all.

Two other reservoirs in the Foothill Ranch area are painted an earth tone that blends into the hillsides. The largest two IRWD reservoirs each hold 16 million gallons of water. They are buried concrete structures located at the Baker Water Treatment Plant in Lake Forest.  IRWD took over that plant and reservoirs during consolidation with the former Los Alisos Water District in 2001.

In 1984, IRWD built what was hailed as the largest steel reservoir in the west at that time – the Zone 1 Reservoir on Sand Canyon Avenue. That reservoir is not easily seen behind its screen of landscape, which is intentional.

Building reservoirs on hills has the advantage of providing needed pressure for the system. There are plenty of hills in the IRWD service area conducive to reservoir construction, making “water tower” reservoirs unnecessary.

For more information on sources of IRWD water, please visit our website.

May is Water Awareness Month and it is during this time Irvine Ranch Water District and the California Water Awareness Campaign helps customers rediscover the most precious resource on Earth. In life or business, everything begins with water, and in California, every drop counts. 

“It’s important for residents to know where their water comes from and that it needs to used wisely in both wet years and dry,” said IRWD Board President Mary Aileen Matheis.

Annually IRWD marks Water Awareness Month by educating our customers on several Resident Tours. The next tour is Saturday, May 19. These tours are an excellent way to learn about IRWD, how water gets to the tap and what happens after it goes down the drain. Tour information is located on our website.

The Water Awareness Campaign was born from one of the state's worst droughts, from 1987 to 1992. In Southern California, a normal rainfall year could be followed by several drought years. We basically live in a desert without many natural water sources, so it needs to be imported from somewhere else.

Where your water comes from depends on where you live within the water district. IRWD drinking water comes from two primary sources – local groundwater and imported water.  Blending of these two sources varies according to the time of year.

Approximately 48 percent of our overall supply comes from local groundwater wells in the Orange County Groundwater Basin, and the Irvine and Lake Forest sub-basins. In 1979, the Dyer Road Wellfield Project was developed in Santa Ana and provides low-cost, high-quality drinking water. IRWD operates 25 groundwater wells in our service area, with more planned and under development.

Around 27 percent of IRWD’s drinking water is purchased from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. This imported water comes from the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct and from Northern California via the State Water Project, or California Aqueduct.  The Colorado River Aqueduct water must travel 250 miles to reach Orange County, while the State Water Project transports supplies more than 400 miles.

Additionally, IRWD has an impressive recycled water program. At IRWD, we believe water is too valuable to only use once, so every drop of recycled water used for irrigation, industrial uses and toilet flushing, saves drinking water. This allows us to keep our water rates low.

One of our newest additions to our water portfolio is water banking. This is an important tool and opportunities for groundwater banking programs in Southern California are limited. IRWD has entered into a 30-year water banking partnership with the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District in Kern County. Unlike other existing Kern County water banking arrangements, IRWD's partnership with Rosedale provides long-term equity ownership of water banking capacity rather than the typical contract or lease arrangements employed by other agencies.

Information about the IRWD water supply is available at our website.

Solar Cup team members from El Toro High School were busy putting on the last minute finishing touches to their boat before the technical inspection by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) engineers.

“We’re still working on the steering assembly,” said instructor Doug Ford. “Things will go quickly over this next week.”

This is the seventh consecutive year that IRWD has teamed up with students from the El Toro High School Engineering Club for the annual race, held at Lake Skinner in Temecula the weekend of May 18-20. The event is hosted by MWD and is in its 10^th year.

Solar Cup is a seven-month program that begins in the fall with boat-building workshops at Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, and culminates with the race. Teams from 42 high schools from Ventura to San Diego counties are participating in this year’s event. Over the years, more than 7,500 students have participated in Solar Cup, which allows students to apply their skills in math, physics, engineering and communications, while learning about Southern California’s water sources, resource management and alternative energy development.

For more information about IRWD education programs, please visit our website.

Six students in grades two through nine had their water conservation-themed artwork selected by the Municipal Water District of Orange County as winners in the annual Water Awareness Poster-Slogan Contest. More than 800 original posters were submitted by students countywide. One of the students was a grand prize winner for her submission in the Digital Arts Contest.

“These students demonstrate the effectiveness of water education,” said IRWD Board President Mary Aileen Matheis. “It also shows that they understand the importance of water and using it wisely.”

IRWD participates in the MWDOC contest every year and in a poster contest sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. IRWD has a consistent record of students being honored by both organizations.

Winning the grand prize in the digital arts contest was Andrea Zhang, a ninth grader at Northwood High School.  She used an Adobe Photoshop program to paint her picture, starting from a blank canvas. She won a Kindle Fire.

Winning in the poster category were:

• Aarya Padhye, second grade, Springbrook Elementary
• Max Schoeneberger, fifth grade, La Madera Elementary
• Yasmin Lissa Fukushima, second grade, Tustin Ranch Elementary
• Arlana May, fifth grade, Santiago Hills Elementary
• Matthieu Huy, fourth grade, Foothill Ranch Elementary

An awards ceremony was held at the Discovery Science Center on May 30.

For more information about IRWD education programs, please visit our website.