San Marcos Water Master Planning

Plummer has been deeply involved in the development and maintenance of the City of San Marcos’ water distribution system hydraulic model for over 10 years. We recently updated the City’s Water Master Plan to reflect changes to the system. Updates to the plan included full calibration and transferring the model from WaterCAD to InfoWater. The City enlisted Plummer to evaluate service extension requests, adjustments to operational protocol, fire flow availability, and a myriad of other proposed modifications to the distribution system through hydraulic modeling.

The City of San Marcos relies on both surface and groundwater sources to meet the needs of an ever-growing population. In facing even greater restrictions on harvesting groundwater sources, master planning efforts have focused on transitioning to using surface water sources only, with existing groundwater wells maintained as emergency backup supplies. Plummer has been instrumental in identifying the key projects necessary to move forward with this transition and has recently completed the construction administrative oversight of one such project which will enable the decommissioning of two of the City’s wells. As part of the current Master Plan Update, Plummer assisted the City in assessing the possibility of securing additional water sources beyond those currently utilized.

In addition to assisting the City in the transition from ground to surface water, the update to the Water Master Plan focused on improving operational efficiency. Through pump performance testing conducted by Plummer, the City is gaining valuable knowledge regarding the condition of some of their most expensive and energy-intensive assets. Pump testing also offers insight into the effectiveness of various control strategies, the need for additional pumps and/or pump replacement, or incorporation of variable frequency drives as energy-saving measures. One unusual but not altogether unexpected outcome of pump testing was the discovery of a malfunctioning valve which was costing the City in pumping energy. It is expected that, upon full evaluation of pump testing, additional cost-saving measures will be identified.