Cave Creek under voluntary water conservation after incident near the CAP

By Jeff Wendt
Mail

Cave Creek residents are being asked to voluntarily conserve water after an incident at the intake system near the Central Arizona Project, town officials said Wednesday.

Early Wednesday morning, town officials said a thick, mud-type material entered  Cave Creek's CAP’s intake system from the canal. It required the Water Treatment Plant to be temporarily shut down to clear out the intake and restore normal operations.

According to Utilities Director Shawn Kreuzwiesner, the town had issues in starting its 12-mile CAP pipeline today.

“It took staff several hours to resolve the issues with the pipeline and the four booster sites,” Kreuzwiesner wrote in an e-mail. “During that time, we had to rely on our water storage reservoirs to meet customer demands – which is why we have reservoirs in the system.”

Kreuzwiesner added after working on the issues for a few hours, the town decided as a precaution to ask customers to limit water use to ensure we didn’t use up all the reservoir storage.

“No customer lost water service today,” Kreuzwiesner said.

The town is gradually bringing the water system online to restore normal water operations, according to Deputy Town Manager Teresa Riza. The treatment plant has resumed treating water from the CAP canal after clearing air from the CAP 3 booster pump. 

The plan is to continue serving customers while the town continues replenishing its water reservoirs. It will take 2 to 3 days until the reservoirs are back to normal water levels. 

The CAP pipeline began operating again late Wednesday afternoon, and has restarted the water treatment plant. Staff will run the plant a little longer for the next few days to restore the reservoir storage capacity.

A Central Arizona Project official said late Wednesday the issue was at Cave Creek’s pump station located at their CAP water intake.

The town said it is urging customers to reduce water use, including:

• Limit outdoor watering.

• Delay washing vehicles.

• Postpone laundry and other non-essential water use if possible.

• Use only the water you need.

Jeff Wendt
Reporter | Phoenix/Cave Creek

jwendt@iniusa.org

Meet Jeff
Jeff Wendt started at Independent Newsmedia in January 2023, after 25 years working for Gannett and The Arizona Republic. Started as a high school sports scoretaker, worked up to reporting high school sports and then became an associate high school sports editor in 2002. Also worked in the Design Studio as a copy editor.

Community: Jeff serves on the Board of Elders at his local church.

Education: Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication

Random fact: Attended Game 2 of the 2001 World Series.

Hobbies: Playing video games (yes still the kid in me), watching reality TV, playing poker.