Property

Around 2010, Sunnyslope purchased a property near Southside and Enterprise Road as a potential water supply well site. The properties around it developed for residential housing, creating Fulton and Mojave Way which abut Sunnyslope's property. Sunnyslope ensured that large enough pipes were stubbed out to the well site for the future. Sunnyslope drilled a test well at the site which appeared to indicate that it would be a successful well site. It showed high levels of TDS and hardness, which are common among all wells around Hollister.

Treatment Considerations

Originally, the site had been considered for utility scale Reverse Osmosis treatment as a way to reduce the hardness and salinity of the well water. Key limitations to the Reverse Osmosis strategy are the high energy consumption and the brine disposal issues. Overcoming these issues was going to be extremely expensive, so Sunnyslope pivoted course and partnered with SBCWD and Hollister on the upgrade of Lessalt and construction of West Hills water treatment plants. These achieve similar salinity and hardness reductions at a lower cost. But those are dependent upon imported surface water which can be curtailed during droughts. 

Future

The development of Well #12 remains one of Sunnyslope's long-term water supply strategies. Currently, well water treatment to reduce salinity and hardness is not the most economical strategy since there remains additional expansion capacity at West Hills and sufficient imported surface water supply. However we recognize that the imported surface water is vulnerable to droughts, climate change, politics, aging infrastructure, environmental regulations,  and other issues. Groundwater treatment at the Well #12 site therefore remains a viable long-term consideration.