Where Does Our Water Come From?

The Tumwater Water Utility's top priority is providing drinking water of the highest quality to our customers within Tumwater's service area.

The first water system in the Tumwater area was built by the Olympia Brewing Company in 1885, using the extraordinary high quality water in their product and coining the phrase, "It's the Water."  In 1927, Tumwater purchased that system, as well as another, from a small private water company, and developed McAleer Springs as a source of supply. By the 1950's, the Palermo Valley wellfield was developed as the major source of supply.  Since then, an additional wellfield and multiple individual wells have been added to the water system to supply fresh, clean water as the City continued to develop.

The water from the Palermo and other wellfields comes from underground aquifers - porous rock formations below the ground that "hold" water.  These aquifers are replenished by rainwater as it infiltrates through the ground and is filtered by the soil.  The many layers of soil and rock that sit above the aquifers act to cleanse the water as it passes and helps prevent contamination from the surface.  The aquifers serving Tumwater's customers contain water of exceptional quality.

Tumwater's water systems draws water out of these aquifers from multiple wellfields located around the City.  Areas on the surface that are near the capture zones, or recharge areas, are known as wellhead protection areas.  The City has 3 main Wellhead Protection Areas - Palermo, Bush, and Port, the names which describe the geographic area in which the wellfields are located. For more information on wellhead protection, visit our water quality page.

The Palermo Wellfield is the City's primary source of water, with Bush Wellfield supplementing supply almost year round.  During the peak summer demand period, other wells located throughout the City help the Utility meet the increased demand.

Monitoring the quality of the water supply is performed on a regular basis.  This includes the raw source water, water within the distribution system, and in some cases, customer's tap water. For more information regarding water quality monitoring, visit our Drinking Water page for recent Water Quality Reports.

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