Public and Community Water Supply

Author: Steve Custer
Data Assembly:  Andrea Wright, Daryl Chipman, Luke Lohmuller, Sean Rowe, Matt Trebesch,
Steve Custer, and Bob Snyder
(Last modified 16 June 2000; 02 January 2010)

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Example Questions the Database Can Answer

  1. Where are the community water supplies?
  2. Where are the public water supplies?
  3. Does the area I am interested in have public/community water?
There are four themes:
  1. Public/Community Water (DEQ) shows the locations of all source waters found after asking operators for location maps.
  2. Source Water Class shows the class of public/community water identified by the Department of Environmental Source Water Protection Bureau where the supply could be located.
  3. Public Water (DOR Geocode (3)) shows the location of properties on public water identified by utility code 3 for all properties which could be located from the CAMAS database maintained by the Department of Revenue.
  4. Community Water (DOR Geocode (5)) shows the location of properties on community water identified by utility code 5 for all properties which could be located from the CAMAS database maintained by the Department of Revenue.

Map of Public and Community Water Supplies Does NOT Exist Except in GIS (Link not possible)

Glossary

For Department of Revenue Data:

Community Water:  Many homes or businesses are on a single water source.  This data shows properties served by community water, but not the location of the well (code 5 on the utility field).

Public Water:  Water for a municipality (code 3 on the utility field).

For Department of Environmental Quality Source Water Data:

Community water system (class C) means a public water supply system which serves at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or that regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents.

Non-transient non-community water system (class P) means a public water supply system that is not a community water system and that regularly serves at least 25 of the same persons over six months per year.  Examples are separate systems serving workers and schools.

Transient non-community water system (class N) means a public water supply system that is not a community water system and does not regularly serve at least 25 of the same persons for at least 6 months per year.  Examples include cafes, bars, campgrounds and motels.

About the Data

Pubcom.shp Metadata
There are two sources for this data.  The first source is Department of Revenue CAMAS database records of utility.  The DOR personnel indicate that this is not a validated field so errors of classification are possible particularly in the 1970s.  The location of the points was identified using address and/or subdivision block and lot data and the 1995 county road book.  If a point could not be located by this method, the data was not entered.   The data from the CAMAS database includes a utility field which reflects public (code 3) and community (code 5) water supply.  Since this data reflects properties, it should not be used to identify wells, but could be used to estimate locations where a property is using public or community water.  The data was obtained in 1997.  The data was not field checked.  The subdivision block and lot identifications or address locations were used in conjunction with the County Road book for all properties in the Local Water Quality District.

The second source is the Department of Environmental Quality Source Water database.  This data base was obtained in 1998 and indicates properties that are are Community (class C) and Non-community (class P and N).  The data was located by writing to each source operator and enclosing a map.  The operator was asked to mark the water supply on the map.  The map was digitized using the 1995 County Road Book locations.  Where a mapped location was not indicated on the County Road Book, a new point was entered to reflect the location the operator indicated.  Two themes are shown.  The first is the DEQ key number (without the extension for multiple sources) which shows where the supply is.  The second is the DEQ class which describes the type of supply (community, transient or non-transient).

The coverages are projected in UTM Zone 12 NAD83.

The definitions of the attributes for data points are outlined in the linked file.