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Rural Utility Services in Modoc CountyBefore moving to country living, your must decide if rural utility services such as electricity, water and sewage disposal will meet your needs. Modoc power prices are probably the cheapest in the state, but using water wells and septic systems may not be to your liking. If you decide Modoc County country living is for you, and you use Modoc’s rural utility services, you will have access to adequate electricity, but drilling water wells and using septic systems are your only options for water and sewer services. This page will provide information on Modoc's rural utility services to help you make sound decisions. Two individual power companies provide Modoc's rural utility services for electric power. Pacific Power Company (a subsidiary of PacifiCorp and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company), provides electric service to the cities of Alturas and Cedarville in Modoc County, and Lakeview and New Pine Creek in southern Oregon. Surprise Valley Electrification Corporation (SVEC) provides rural utility services to 7,650 square miles covering rural areas in northeastern California, southeastern Oregon and northwestern Nevada. SVEC is a true local business founded by three Surprise Valley ranchers in 1937, and one of the oldest rural utility services in the country. After being turned down by the local public service company for electric service to power his dairy's milking machines, a rancher and two neighbors formed SVEC with a Rural Electrification Act loan. In June 1938, they turned the switch on for the first power to 809 California and Oregon customers over 344 miles of transmission lines. SVEC has continued to grow and now serves 5,542 rural meters over 2,111 miles of power lines with power purchased from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). SVEC is a private, non-profit cooperative electric utility owned by the customers (cooperative members) it serves, and returns profits back to members in the form of reduced rates or dividends. The cooperative is unique in that it is one of the very few California rural utility services providers that do not purchase power from the western power grid. Therefore, its members are not as affected by sometimes erratic electricity rate fluctuations. Our rate is currently around $.09 per kilowatt-hour for electric power. Another benefit of being a SVEC member is that you can talk directly to a company representative by calling a local number! If you reside in Alturas or Cedarville and areas immediately adjacent to the cities' limits, you will get electricity from Pacific Power Company. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and offers reasonable rates to rural utility services customers. Pacific Power Company serves an area covering 43,850 square miles, and provides power over more than 58,000 miles of distribution lines. The company provides electric rural utility services to 43,777 customers in California. The company is part of a large corporation, so it has enormous resources for rural utility services customers, purchasing power through the western grid. Obtaining information about bills, services or asking other questions is about the same as dealing with any other large national business. Rural utilities services choices for water supply do not vary much throughout Modoc County. Alturas, and possibly a few other towns, offer city-owned deep-water wells and distribution systems. However, just about all other areas of the county rely on individual water wells to supply water. Ranches and farms often have numerous wells for specific uses, some for home use, and others for stock watering or crop irrigation. If you're moving here from a suburban or urban area, relying on your own well for water may seem primitive. Nothing could be further from the truth though, as drilling water wells through to ground water sources provides a vast majority of U.S. residential water. The only real difference is in the distribution system. If you live in a metropolitan area, you pay a fee to a water district or government agency that digs the wells and builds and maintains the distribution system. If you own your well you don't pay a monthly maintenance fee, but that doesn't mean the water is free. Once you've dug the well, you must be prepared to repair or replace parts as needed. Also, as the majority of wells use electric pumps, the more water you pump, the more electricity you use. Pumping water from an underground source and design for individually owned wells is pretty simple. A suitable location for the well is established usually using existing hydrologic surveys and local contractor experience. Although water witching or dowsing often works to find water (I've actually seen it work!), I don't recommend it for creating your only source of potable water. Likewise, most well experts strongly oppose using water witching to locate groundwater. Once the location is determined, a 6"-8" diameter vertical shaft is drilled to the required depth with a specially built drilling rig. Once usable water is found, a steel (plastic or PVC is sometimes used) casing is driven into the shaft. A drop pipe with a submersible pump attached to the bottom is then lowered into the casing. The pump's wiring is connected to an electrical power source on the surface and the drop pipe is attached to the main distribution piping just below the surface. The casing is then sealed with grout just above the pump. After testing the water to ensure it meets local codes and standards, the casing is sealed. The seal is usually a ventilated cap covering the top of the casing exposed above the surface. The well cap prevents foreign objects, insects and other contamination from entering the water source. As normal pump output cannot keep up with demand from all the outlets in a normal house, the main distribution pipe must connect to a pressure-regulated holding tank before delivery to the house. As freezing temperatures are common in Modoc County during winter months, all rural utility services must be constructed and maintained with winter weather conditions in mind. For this reason, the well holding tank and pressure regulating apparatus must be insulated from the cold. The tank and pressure system are normally enclosed in a small structure. The pump houses, as they are referred to, can be small structures built just big enough to house and protect the tank, or more elaborate buildings combining storage or utility use. Our pump house is a 10'x12' insulated wood frame building with storage capacity. The tank (80 gallon capacity is common) and regulator maintain a steady 7-10 PSI pressure at the house water service connection. Well construction details are recorded on a Water Well Drillers Report, and provided to the homeowner by the well drilling contractor. A copy of the report should be kept safely with important house papers, and its also smart to keep a copy in the pump house. A ballpark planning figure for a brand-new well in Modoc County is around $10,000.00. It could be a little more or less depending on individual location and circumstances, but that figure is a pretty good starting point. Our well was completed over 20 years ago and purchased as part of the property, so I don't know its exact cost. Our well is fairly typical of private water wells in Modoc County. It is 245 feet deep, with the casing sealed at 40 feet. The 4-5 HP pump is located between 102 and 145 feet below the surface, and pumps 56 degree water at 37 gallons per minute into an 80 gallon pressurized holding tank. A very comprehensive discussion of the rural utility services for well water and well construction as well as sewage disposal can be found at this link. As with rural utility services providing water in Modoc County, sewage disposal is also pretty standard. Alturas has a city sewer treatment plant and city sewer system, but most other areas of the county rely on septic systems. An adequate sewage disposal system is one of the most important rural utility services you have. Although someone used to city sewage disposal systems may think of septic tanks as inferior, a septic system is actually a basic and very efficient method of disposing of household waste. Household waste and sewer is piped out of the house into a holding tank usually buried in the ground. The tanks are normally made of concrete but sometimes plastic or fiberglass is used. Normal tank capacity is 750-1500 gallons, but any size can be custom-made. The tanks are constructed with one or two adjacent connected chambers, with household waste entering near the top of the tank. The solid waste and sewage falls to the bottom of the chamber(s), and turns to sludge, while liquid waste fills the tank. While it will take a long time for solid waste to fill a properly constructed and maintained septic tank, a tank will fill quickly with liquid. Normal house drains (sinks, washer, showers, toilets) will fill a tank with liquid in a matter of a few days. A tank properly maintained with a periodic addition of enzymes will take many years, if ever, to fill with solid waste. The enzymes aid natural bacteria in breaking down solids and neutralize detergents and other chemicals, and turns solids into sludge and some liquid. Some people have septic tanks pumped every 5-10 years just to be safe, but it's not unheard of for a tank to never fill with solids. Perhaps the most important part of any septic system is the drain or leach field system. The leach field consists of perforated pipe, normally PVC, buried in deep trenches and connected to the septic tank at or slightly above the level of the waste entry pipe. The pipes are buried and surrounded with gravel or rock then covered with fill or topsoil. Liquid waste (effluent) then drains, or leaches into the gravel and surrounding soil. The pipes are buried deep enough so that unpleasant odors do not escape into the air. Rule of thumb normally requires approximately 100 feet of drainage for each member of a household. Septic system capacity is roughly determined by household size, so a 3-bedroom/2-bath home would normally require a 1000-1500 gallon tank and 400 feet of leach lines. Local building codes dictate minimum requirements. A system like this should cost around $5,000.00 to $8,000.00, and it is strongly recommended that a licensed, qualified plumbing contractor construct and install the system. A properly constructed and maintained septic system should provide many years of trouble-free waste disposal service. Rural utility services of power, water and sewage disposal are basic services required to maintain a modern home. This site contains much more information on other rural utility services that aren't necessarily mandatory for everyone, but nonetheless important to most for a comfortable country life. More Modoc Country Living...
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