Ketchikan Public Utilities Water

The Water Division is committed to providing residents and businesses of Ketchikan with pure and safe potable water as may be required for residential, commercial and industrial purposes. In order to accomplish this task, the Division is responsible for the maintenance and operation of over 32 miles of distribution system within the municipality, several reservoirs, and associated pump stations. Daily tasks of the Water Division include continuous monitoring and chemical testing to ensure water purity and quality at all times. The Water Division stands ready to assist its customers as efficiently and effectively as possible within guidelines established by federal and state law, the Charter of the City of Ketchikan, the Ketchikan Municipal Code and the ratepayers of the Utility as represented by the City Council.

2006 Consumer Confidence Report

2005 Consumer Confidence Report

2004 Consumer Confidence Report

2007 Annual Water Quality Report

2nd Quarter "Important Information About Your Drinking Water

Water Rates & Billing Information

Function/ Duties

Ketchikan Public Utilities presently only provides potable water to our customers located within the City Limits and only within the area demarked between the United States Coast Guard Base south of Ketchikan to Ketchikan Ready-Mix to the north of town. Although the former Shoreline Service area is now within the City limits, KPU does not presently provide water service to that area. The individual property owners own and maintain their own systems. Plans are presently being developed to extend service northward to the Shoreline area and construction will begin when financing becomes available.

Similarly to the south and beyond the Coast Guard Base, the Mountain Point and Shoup Street service areas are served by a potable water system owned and operated by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. The City of Saxman also owns and operates a municipal water system operating within its City limits. With those exceptions, everything else is privately owned and the individual property owners are responsible for their maintenance. This includes the Herring Cove Water Users Association that serves a limited number of residences located within the Herring Cove area.

An agreement is in place for bulk water sales by KPU to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. The Borough has already constructed a water main connecting the Mountain Point and Shoup Street service areas that will ultimately connect to Ketchikan’s municipal water system at the southernmost City limit. In the interim, private water haulers with certified tank trucks deliver water to individual residences and businesses on an as-needed basis for a fee.

KPU Water Division

Ketchikan Public Utilities was established by the City of Ketchikan when it purchased the assets of Citizens Light, Power & Water Co. Inc. on June 25, 1935 for the sum of $954,000. It was the first city in the United States to own and operate all three of its own utilities – Electric, Telephone, and Water.

Since that time, the Utility has continued to grow and modernize its facilities to meet the ever-increasing needs of its ratepayers and to ensure continuing compliance with the EPA’s Administrative Order. This Order, allowing Ketchikan’s municipal water system to remain unfiltered, has saved the community much of the cost of constructing a water filtration plant with an estimated cost of over $20 million as well as the annual operating costs for chemicals, electricity, and labor. Issued in July 1993, it required KPU to make several major system modifications, new instrumentation measurements, and thorough continuous testing before we met EPA standards. These modifications included the construction of the Bear Valley Reservoir to increase the chlorine contact time after the water was chlorinated and disinfected. Constructed over the next year and a half, this 3 million gallon reservoir first went into service on January 26, 1995. Since that date, Ketchikan has remained in compliance with all the governing criteria of the EPA’s Surface Water Treatment Rules.

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