All’s Well That’s Well-Hidden : Utility: That tidy bungalow on a Santa Ana street just might hide a city water well. But one visible storage facility is a towering tank.

In the middle of a quiet Santa Ana neighborhood stands a cobalt-blue bungalow looking much like other houses on the street. A chain-link fence surrounds its manicured front lawn, set off by a ring of garden pebbles.

But instead of housing people, this one-story bungalow--replete with soundproof walls--is home to the city’s most modern water well.

As one of 17 city sources of ground water, Well 31 on Walnut Street illustrates the extent to which Santa Ana has gone to blend into the landscape the tanks, pumps, pipes and reservoirs that make up a water system all the more precious in this time of drought.

While other cities in the county leave their wells and reservoirs unmasked and in the open, Santa Ana has built buffers around neighborhood wells and artfully tucked a 6-million gallon storage facility beneath a complex of public tennis courts. Even Santa Ana’s prominent million-gallon water tank visible to thousands of drivers traveling the Santa Ana Freeway serves, in effect, as the city’s largest billboard bearing the city’s motto.

“We try to blend in the wells and reservoirs to fit the community,” said Ray Burk, an associate engineer for the city’s water division. “We want the water to have the least amount of disturbance to a neighborhood.”

The city wells pump water that has gathered underground after flowing from the Santa Ana River basin. Each well’s pumping equipment, 20 feet long and painted battleship gray, is driven by a high-tech motor wired with sensitive alarms that sound if anyone tries to tamper with the system. The sophisticated machinery hums loudly as it pumps around the clock.

In the past, residents complained that the wells were loud and the reservoirs were ugly, said Lee Harry, the city’s water resource manager. So the city discovered ways to disguise the equipment to look more like a friendly neighbor.

Take Well 31 for example. The bungalow that covers the well has a fake front door and windows so the house doesn’t stand out from its neighbors. Thick, insulated walls muffle the pumping sounds.

City wells provide more than 70% of Santa Ana’s drinking water supply. Santa Ana buys the rest from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Whatever the source, the water ends up in the same places. Most of the city’s water supply is stored in seven underground reservoirs and one old-fashioned water tower, Burk said.

The 52-year-old tower at 14th and Poinsettia streets--the last of its kind in Orange County--is the city’s most noticeable water container. Made of welded steel and rising 153 feet, it is also the largest free-standing water tank on the West Coast.

With the capacity to hold a million gallons, the tank keeps the city’s water pressure in balance. Since water is pumped in and out of the tank at night when electricity rates are lowest, the city saves the cost of more expensive pumping to create sufficient water pressure.

The tank also bears the city’s motto--”Santa Ana, the All-American City.” Workers, however, will soon replace that with a new motto recently approved by the City Council. It will simply say, “Education First.”

The city’s seven reservoirs are scattered throughout Santa Ana, with the 6-million-gallon Crooke Reservoir, for example, tucked under a Santiago Park soccer field.

The Walnut Reservoir, near Santa Ana High School, also holds 6 million gallons of water beneath tennis courts that are owned by the Santa Ana Unified School District.

The ceiling of the reservoir is braced by huge concrete columns that make the vault look like a ancient city submerged in a sea.

“It looks like a huge shopping mall underwater,” said water operator Craig Daskalakis. “It’s kind of appropriate for Orange County.”