Several neighbors along Berkeley Road noticed water rushing down normally dry San Jose Creek this morning. The Goleta Water District is in the process of recommissioning a couple of wells to add to the district water supply, said KK Holland, a policy analyst for the district. The tests to ensure recent groundwater treatment upgrades are working will end up releasing about three acre-feet through Saturday. After dechlorination, the released water is kept in the creek bed — with monitors to check that it doesn’t flow out to the slough — to recharge back to the aquifer, she said. The well was also flushed in September as part of its rehabilitation.
In addition to the well at Berkeley Road, the district will begin work at the Shirrell well on Las Vegas Creek from October 13-15. More water work will occur over 48 hours sometime in November, Holland said, before the wells are connected to the drinking water distribution system by the end of the year. The last time these two wells were operational, she added, was during the drought of the 1990s.