As our President Sharon Tobias said in her Report above, the Shareholders did not have a quorum for the 2025-2026 election. Therefore, we will be extending our election until July 10, 2025, which will be when the next Board of Directors meeting occurs at the Blagen Road office.
Reminders to Shareholders:
Please complete and send in your Proxy/Ballot. Election materials were sent out May 1, 2025. If you still have your Proxy/Ballot, please complete it, and mail it back to us. You are also welcome to swing by our office and vote here. We have also put the Proxy/Ballot on our website (www.BLSMWC.com).
We have placed many election flyers with a QR code throughout town. If you do not know how to use a QR code, you just take a picture of it, and it will show you the link to our website. You select that link, and it takes you directly to the voting area. We try to make voting as easy as possible. If you have any ques-tions, please call the BLMWC office at (209) 795-7025.
We have had a lot of responses to our Cross Connection Control Survey! Thank you. We need a Survey from every Shareholder. If you have not completed the Survey, we have extras at the office, and they are on our website. We will be working on this project for the rest of the year.
Lastly, if you have not been at your house or cabin for some time, please flush the water pipes at your home, and this includes your hot water heater. The most common complaint we hear at the beginning of summer is that a Shareholder’s water has gotten “stale.” Flushing will help solve this problem.
BLSMWC Projects:
Over 2024-2025, the BLSMWC office staff and I have been working very hard to get the Lead Service Line Inventory completed. This Inventory is required by the State Water Resource Control Board and the EPA. Fortunately, and as expected, we verified there is no lead in the BLSMWC water system. Most homes/cabins were built after the 1986 lead ban. There were just under 300 homes that were built before 1986. We visually inspected these, and none had lead.
Another project we are working on is the Cross Control Connection Policy and Plan. We have finished the Plan and sent it out to the State. From here-on out, we will continue collecting the Cross Connection Control Survey from the Shareholders (as mentioned above). Currently, we only have four double-check valves in the system to ensure that there is no backflow or cross contamination. One valve is at the Blue Lake Springs Lodge, and the other three are connected to CCWD.
Moving on with what we have done in the field this year, our biggest project was cleaning and repairing our Main Tank 6. CCWD let us borrow two of their tanks, at no cost, while Tank 6 was drained, cleaned, and repaired. We hired a special company to help with this. It was quite the endeavor to say the least. There were 30 years of iron and manganese built up on the walls of the tank. These minerals come out of the water company’s wells. We do treat for these minerals, but they cannot be removed 100%.
The other large project we did this year, following Tank 6, was the Boro Court project where we replaced the main and water services lines. This project was listed in the BLSMWC’s original USDA project, but we fell short toward the end and were not able to complete this project. The old main pipe was 50 years old and very flexible and brittle. We have replaced the old pipe with a new one that is four times as strong and twice as thick.
We have done a lot of maintenance and upgrades to our system throughout the year, including putting a new roof on Well 3 and updating the Analyzer for the chlorinator at the water treatment plant. The Analyzer keeps the chlorine levels steady and prevents fluctuations. We also replaced a new Static Mixer Pump for the Chlorinator and replaced G5 concrete boxes.
Future Projects:
For the remainder of this year, we would like to clean and repair the fittings and coating on the floor of Tank 4. We also need to finish up on Boro Court. Both of our large generators, one at the Treatment Plant and one on a trailer by the Plant, both need to be serviced. We will also be high velocity flushing this year, which clears the sediment out and improves the quality of the water. We also will continue separation of the old mains from the new ones, which was started during the USDA project. There are still 22 of these old mains to replace.
Finally, there will be the annual maintenance of hydrants and valves in Blue Lake Springs. We pride ourselves on keeping them clean, easily accessible, and in working order. We do flow and pressure checks, lubricate fittings, and exercise the valves on all the hydrants.
Tyler Mayo
General Manager
Blue Lake Springs Mutual Water Company