Elmer Hays Researched Waitsburg Springwater System History

Editor’s Note: In light of recent interest in Waitsburg’s water situation, we thought our readers would appreciate this column written by Vance Orchard in Touchet Valley Ramblings, which first appeared on Feb. 15, 1990. We are reprinting the portion of that pertains to the city’s springwater system.

Getting water to residents of Waitsburg is the chief concern of Elmer Hays as the City Engineer.

Water supply for Waitsburg has also captured the attention of Hays, who has researched the system supplying the city possibly more than anyone else. That supply, starting in 1892 with the source on the Upper Coppei, still comes from there but has been altered since that beginning nearly a century ago.

Hays became interested in the system a few years ago when a dispute flared over its methodology. At the height of the issue, Hays says, “I took the old city council minutes home and started reading them.

That exercise proved to be some of the most interesting reading he has enjoyed.

It also proved of more than passing interest to others as the proceedings of the dispute unraveled, it might be noted.

Hays explains that the city limit boundaries are stretched uniquely to accommodate the water system’s start from a dammed up reach of the upper Coppei Creek.

“The City fathers, back in 1892,” Hays says, “bought a 10-foot strip of land all the way up Coppei Creek to Coppei Station (at one time a townsite hopeful which died).”

Hays says the water came down a pipe line in that 10-foot line (located just inside the old Northern Pacific Railway right-of-way, by the way) to the vicinity of the present City Engineer’s headquarters building, then was pumped up the hill.

“That’s the way it was until 1917, when the city built a series of springs up there and in 1935-1938 some more improvements were made.”

It is of interest to local history buffs, that the old “Up to the Times” magazine in a February, 1908 article, noted that additions had been made that year to the water system, amounting to some $10,000 and also that year “A new sewer system has just been built at a cost of $10,000.”

The article did not explain further details of the project.

While water goes to the hillside reservoir today in a new structure, the old one “is still up there,” Hays notes.

The Waitsburg water system probably rates quite highly among systems of cities of its size. Hays didn’t have any figures on that, but did observe that when the cannery was going full tilt here, “we furnished them 2,000 to 3,000 gallons a minute for their operations.”

Cost of water to Waitsburg residents rates with any place else, too. There are some 520 units on 480 meters and homes are charged “about $8 a month basic for water and $7 for sewer.” Hays notes that some 10 to 15 meters are replaced each year by him and his two assistants, Grady Nix and Dan Katsel.

Hays says “a lot of water mains” have been replaced, too, in recent years, some by the city trio. But, since 1980, the work has largely been contracted out to a private firm to speed up the job.

“We could only devote a few days at a time to it before regular work interrupted,” he explained.

Augmenting the older sources of water today are four wells, all inside the city limits.

“The system right now, is in good shape,” Hays adds.