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Water draw for Willow had little impact on Green Valley lakes

By Max Foster, Roundup staff reporter

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Photo by Bob Mykleby During the Willow Fire, giant Sikorsky Sky Crane helicopters thundered into Green Valley Park taking an estimated 20,000 gallons of water per day from the lakes to fight the blaze.

Green Valley Park gave up an estimated 20,000 gallons of water per day to the recent fire-fighting efforts, but the withdrawal had virtually no effect on the lakes.

"We pumped more in than they took out," Northern Gila County Sanitary District General Manager Joel Goode said. "The water level only varied by about eight inches.

"We have set a point and when it went below that, we started pumping more effluent in."

Almost all of the water taken out was from the smaller lake on the southeastern side of the park.

"If they had a new helicopter pilot, they might have mistakenly took it out of the large lake," Goode said.

Helicopters first began taking water out of the lake to fight the Willow Fire on June 25 and continued until July 2.

The helicopters then scooped from Roosevelt Lake, and some truck tankers hauled water from Green Valley Park to the airport where it was used for dust control and to help make slurry, Goode said.

According to payson Police Chief Gordon Gartner the southeastern lake was chosen as a water source because the helicopters could approach it without flying over any roads or densely populated areas.

While the helicopters drew a great deal of interest and attracted crowds of onlookers, there were no serious incidents.

"About all that happened was some people wanted to get too close, so we had to move them back," Gartner said.

According to Goode, NGCSD officials never hesitated when asked by the Forest Service to use the water in the firefighting effort.

"Protecting the community is our first priority," he said.