Drinking Water in the Rosario Area

As of 2022, domestic drinking water in the Rosario residential community was provided by Washington Water Service, a subsidiary of California Water Service Group. According to its website, California Water Service Group in 2022 was “the third-largest publicly traded water utility in the United States”.

Washington Water owns a treatment plant on Firehouse Lane where water pumped from Cascade Lake is treated prior to distribution. The drinking water treatment plant is co-located with a wastewater treatment plant that, in 2022, served some area residents and Rosario Resort.

The physical treatment and distribution system as of late 2022 was being managed by Eastsound Water Users Association (EWUA) under contract to Washington Water.

2005 Water Supply Research

In 2005, Rosario Utilities, our community water utility at the time, together with Eastsound Water Users Association, commissioned a report from RH2 Engineering of Bothell, WA. A copy of the Rosario Water Budget Supply Analysis Preliminary Report and some accompanying maps have survived.

2007 Washington Water buys utility from Rosario Utilities LLC

This sale included water rights. See Water Rights Conveyance, recorded document 2007-1101026

Washington Water Fight (around 2010)

Oral history from former RPOA president Jobin Suthergreen and neighbor Mary Poletti tells of a successful grass-roots effort by Rosario neighbors to fight against a significant water utility rate increase proposed by Washington Water, the company who bought the local water system from Rosario Utilities. As the story is told, neighbors successfully lobbied the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission to prevent the rate increase.

2021

In late December 2021, a prolonged cold snap resulted in broken water pipes in at least three vacant homes in the Rosario area. Within the same period of severe weather, a windstorm may have caused a tree to uproot near a water line involved in connecting storage tanks to the system, reportedly resulting in a loss of a large amount of backup storage. The combination of the reported loss of storage and undetected broken pipes in vacant homes resulted in partial to complete water outages in parts of the greater Rosario area over the course of multiple days. Washington Water technicians, with the assistance of residents, were eventually able to track down the leaks and make the necessary repairs in order to fully restore service.

2022

The following information was provided by Eastsound Water Users Association via telephone in November 2022:

Washington Water has contracted for system operation and maintenance with EWUA while retaining responsibility for all administration. The interface to Washington Water for billing does not change, nor does pricing. EWUA does all the on-the-ground work, including meter reading, plant operation, service calls. Joel Marquardt, formerly part of Washington Water’s on-island staff, has taken a job with EWUA and is still managing the treatment plant. Other EWUA technicians are cross-training with Joel. This has been going on for several months. EWUA has a similar service contract for Doe Bay Water and Olga Water.

The Cascade Lake pumphouse structure saw a major rebuild in Fall 2022.