The water at Napa Pipe

Dear editor, with reference to the March 17 letter, “Judge Napa Pipe on its merits,” by Steve Orndorf. It is great to have an old-timer Napan getting involved. Too bad Steve didn’t work at Kaiser Steel, and having arrived in Napa in 1980 he missed seeing the big wood towers over the wells.

I would like to make a comment on his water solution. I think there were eight or nine wells, some were artesian and some were overflowing artesian, especially in winter. And yes, C&H used the water. Their value was their purity, specifically for C&H Sugar processing. The wells were overdrawn, resulting in salt and other intrusions, and the wells were basically abandoned.

In the 1970s Kaiser Steel opened what might have been the last of the wells, about 600 feet deep with about a 64-degree water. The reason was to cut costs and use water of industrial quality that was not considered potable, rather than pay for high-cost city of Napa water (Kaiser was also using Napa water). As for the statement that if the proposed development actually used the water on site the usage is likely to be less than what Kaiser Steel and Napa Pipe used for decades to hydraulically expand their pipe, I don’t think so! When a

36-inch pipe on a slope has been expanded and the 2,115 gallons of water is being drained in about one minute, it is impressive. But the water is going into a sump under the expander to be reused on the next pipes. I think we called it recycling?

George Henke

Napa

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