Water System

No Scheduled Outages

There are no planned outages at this time.

For Riverhill Public Water System outages contact:
Michael McCarthy
253-273-8464

For all other Riverhill Public Water System questions please contact the Riverhill HOA Board.

Water System Manager News - September 2026

As I mentioned in the summer newsletter, we are in a transition period where our attention is now focused on maintaining good quality water for the community. This report will provide the status of our current situation as well as expected future actions.

We are continuing to work on our Department of Health (DOH)-required proposal to add a level of protection to our water supply by installing a chlorine injection system in our pump house. Barring any unforeseen delays in the proposal process, I expect that that installation will be completed prior to the annual meeting in November (in the next two months).
Since the end of February, we have been monitoring the amount of water that our wells have been producing (as read from the recording gauges in the pump house) and the amount of water that we have been using (as reflected in the already installed water meters). According to the well-recording gauges, we are drawing considerably more from the aquifer than our Department of Ecology (ECY) allocation. There are a few individual properties that are using about as much water in a month as they should use in an entire year. Our investigation of these anomalies and other concerns will continue. We will be directly contacting some homeowners regarding this.
Recently, our water system has suffered another pump shutdown. On Saturday, Aug. 8, one of our pumps went offline. Thankfully, one of our homeowners, Dave Mueller, heard the alarm and emailed the board, and a simple reset of the circuit breaker brought the pump back online. To protect us from a future event like this we have improved our monitoring and response capabilities by doing the following. First, we have contacted the homeowners living closest to the reservoir and provided them with a phone number to call in addition to the email to the board. Second, as it appears that this well pump failure occurred sometime during a 2-day period, we are now checking the water levels daily. And third, thanks to a suggestion from Kim Norton, we are trimming back the trees in the immediate area so that homeowners have a clearer line of sight to the rotating emergency beacon. Hopefully, these stop gap measures will protect us until a more permanent fix is made.
Another of the measures that we are playing catch-up with is the clearing of the Right of Way (ROW) on many homeowner’s easements. Ten homeowners have been contacted already with clearing commencing. Additional homeowners will be contacted in the coming months. As the clearing of the ROW is a requirement in our by-laws, it would be helpful for everyone that homeowners approach this issue on their own initiative, rather than having a community representative like myself physically come around and remind homeowners of this requirement before anything is done.

I have been doing this job since January. In my time I have been obliged by competing budget interests to see that fiscal considerations have been emphasized more than the health of our water system. We have been limping along doing “triage” (as Richard has said). This must change. I will be proposing to the board that the water system be separated into its own management structure, consolidating the tasks and funding into a separate organization. I intend to present this approach at the annual meeting in November.

I am sending this out now so that we can all review and see where our water system is headed. I will be at the annual potluck on Saturday, Sept. 12. Hope to see you there.

Water System Manager
Michael McCarthy

Tank Cleaning Report

In February 2026, the water tank was cleaned and inspected by divers. The report showed that the tank was in better shape than we expected, and highlighted a few maintenance items for the board to address. The full report is available here: Diver Inspection Report

Water Meter Project

Currently installed water meter count: 68
Meter installations are concluded for 2025, but will resume in Spring of 2026. We look forward to seeing you at the next work day!
A letter from the Riverhill HOA
Keyed map
Installation Progress

Water Mains

Map of the River Hill HOA water system mains. If you are having trouble locating your system shutoff try drawing a line between the main closest to your home and your home's main water shutoff. This will work most of the time but there is no certainty. Location of the mains is approximate and there is no record of where water lines ran between the main and homes. Locations of mains is approximate.
Water Mains