OCR Text |
Show Where Park City's Water Comes From ' j :. Ah-,) Ah-,) I I ( ; I - a v. v t j j T l r . ' . f ' i , ! 1, - ' v , . " r v " ' " w ' Councilman Rich Martinez based much of his re-election campaign for city council on a simple platform-water. In his 11 years on the council, Martinez, a superintendent at the Ontario Mine, has headed the city water committee and been responsible for keeping water running in the local taps. Last week, Martinez gave a tour of his pride and joy, the new Judge water drift built under his supervision three years ago. It was built at a time when two previous water drifs had deteriorated deterior-ated to the point that local residents could not be sure from day to day if they would have water to drink. Since it was built, Park City has had its first completely reliable water source, a source that is checked every 15 days to ensure an adequate water supply. For anyone who has worked as a miner, or been underground in one of the many tunnels and shafts underneath Park City and the surrounding area, the idea of a water "drift" is not hard to understand. It is simply an underground stream fed by run-off and seepage from various water sources in the mountain, and channelled through a man-made man-made tunnel. The Judge drift flows from deep within the mountain 1200 feet below the surface of the now inactive Judge mine shaft south of Daly Avenue. It surfaces near the gate that marks the end of Daly Avenue near the site of the city's new million gallon reservoir, reser-voir, scheduled to be completed next spring. An average of between 1300 and 1400 gallons of water flow through the Judge every minute, feeding two of the city's three existing 500 gallon reservoirs-one reservoirs-one lower than the new reservoir( but near Daly Avenue, and the other, most obvious tank, overlooking over-looking Main Street on Massonic Hill. The city's other main source, pumped to the Holiday Ranch Park Meadows area as far south as the 7-11 store, comes from the Theriot Springs and it stored in a reservoir near the Silver King Mine Train ride. The new reservoir will give Park City a storage capacity of 2.5 million gallons and will double the amount of water storage coming from the Judge water drift. Martinez begins the tour by taking us down the Daly West shaft to the 750 foot level, the same level as the water drift, but closer to the surface because of the slope of the mountain. Mining is still taking place in the Daly shaft, "some 1700 lower. It is a 10 minute walk, slogging through shallow water and clay in rubber boots and yellow slickers, to the intersection of the Judge tunnel. Here, the water drift flows like any other stream of water except it travels underneath under-neath the old tracks that once carried ore cars years ago when it was an active mining area. Martinez points to where the water reaches the surface, out of sight but only a few hundred feet away. The tour is heading the other direction, however, into the depths of the mountain where the new part of the drift was built. A tour of the city's water, drift shows many of the old tunnels once used to channel the town's water to be in disrepair. Hiking along a path of planks laid in the middle of the tracks, we can see Park City's water flowing clean and clear underfoot. The destination is an area a few thousand feet ahead that once presented frequent problems for the town water supply. Martinez explains that when he first joined the council, the tunnel would frequently cave in, blocking the water flow, and he would have to come clear out the debris to get the water supply moving again. When we finally arrive at the problem area, it is obvious why the city faced a serious problem. The soft ground in this area of the tunnel, beyond the point where water flow has since been diverted, is held up by old and deteriorating timbers. We climb over two or three caved-in areas before it is impossible to go on. According to Martinez, the last 800 feet are completely caved in. Before the new tunnel was dug, through hard ground that required requir-ed few support timbers, the city tried diverting the stream through another tunnel in the area, but faced much the same problems. When we tour the second old drift, we see fewer cave-ins, but encounter the problem of seepage through the "stopes", or mined-out areas of the tunnel. This second tunnel curves around both the old drift and the new drift and is riddled with small offshoots where the ore was taken out, forming man-made caverns and irregular tunnels that lead to other levels of the mine Martinez explains that when this second tunnel was used as the water drift, much of the town water supply was lost when it overflowed into the stopes and seeped into other areas of the mine below. When we finally backtrack the new drift, which lies roughly halfway between the other two, the contrast is remarkable. Instead of caved-in timbers and irregular offshoots and stopes, we see a clean straight tunnel through hard rock that needs no support. The stream flows completely com-pletely unchecked alongside the tracks. Martinez explains that the tunnel was dug with the aid of a laser to keep a steady course through the rock. A "Bald tunnel", for the most part, it requires only nine sets of timber in one short section of unstable shale rock. The new drift was built in nine months with Martinez supervising supervis-ing two three-man shifts under an interest-free loan from the state Water Resources Board. Completed Com-pleted in 1975, it was the first state-supported project for the development of non-agricultural water sources. Asked what would have happened happ-ened if the new drift had not been built, Martinez answered simply that "we wouldn't have no water. Park City would have had to look for a new source." Ironically, the new tunnel, which had been free of cave-ins or any other disturbance in the water flow since it was built, was blocked in one place by a small cave-in on our tour. Although water flow had not been seriously affected, one of the nine sets of timber had been knocked loose by a large boulder. Martinez reported report-ed at last week's council meeting, three days later, that the cave-in had already been repaired, however. Martinez reported to the tour that he hoped to futher improve Park City's water supply if he is returned to another term on the council. In addition to the new reservoir, Martinez said he hopes to improve the flow of water from the Alliance tunnel, which now flows into the Judge water drift at a rate of about 200 gallons per minute. "There's no way of knowing, but I think the Alliance could be tripled or better if it was fixed," said Martinez. f I . ' its: t f , - - I " ' i iLui y , " Jj'S .. x. A 4 .. j Rich Martinez climbs over one of the many caved-in areas of the old water drift. |