At our first meeting in June, we hosted Joe Duncan, general manager of the Champlain Water District (CWD) as our guest speaker. Joe gave us the history of the water district, which was formed in 1973 and now serves 12 water systems--including Williston, South Burlington, Shelburne, Essex Town and Essex Junction, Milton, Jericho Village, Winooski and parts of Colchester--with a total of 9 million gallons of water a day.
We learned that the intake line is located 1/2 mile into Lake Champlain at a depth of approximately 80 feet. The pump station, located in Red Rocks Park, generally cycles on during the day to take advantage of solar electricity generation. Water takes 2-3 days to travel to Jericho. Surprisingly, the rapid development experienced in this area since the 90s has not led to increased usage, as the number of residential and business users has been offset by greater efficiency and the area's conservation mindset. The biggest fluctuations in usage the district has seen in past decades have been due to changes in demand from industrial customer IBM/GlobalFoundries.
