The City of Lathrop wants to make sure that it will have enough water available in the ground when its needed.

So, it’s going to put the water back into the ground when it’s plentiful so that it can be drawn up when it’s not – potentially getting the State of California to pay for the entire thing.

Earlier this week the Lathrop City Council signed off on having the city apply for grant through the Urban Community Drought Relief grant program administered through the California Department of Water Resources.

The grant could potentially fulfill the aims of the council that created a capital improvement project for an aquifer storage and recovery program earlier this year.

Lathrop currently gets its drinking water from one of two sources – either the aquifer that sits beneath the city through a series of wells, or surface water that is purchased from the South San Joaquin Irrigation District. While the city is in no danger of having either source cut off, planning for future growth and ensuring that the current supplies remain viable necessitate the creation of a long-range plan, according to the staff report prepared for the council.

According to that staff report, the program would work by injecting surface water purchased from SSJID during particularly wet seasons into the existing aquifer so that it can be recovered during dry seasons, droughts, or other water supply shortages.

The council has already approved the preliminary engineering work required to determine the feasibility of such a project, and early estimates of the cost to construct and bring an ASR well online are currently around $6 million. In order to make the grant application more favorable, the council approved a resolution during the meeting that will authorize City Manager Steve Salvatore to act on the city’s behalf to sign the necessary documents if a grant is awarded.

To view the resolution or the staff report prepared for the item, visit the City of Lathrop’s website at www.ci.lathrop.ca.us.