The City of Kent Wellhead Protection Program (WHPP) is a proactive and ongoing effort to prevent contamination of groundwater used for drinking water. All federally defined public water systems that use groundwater as their source are required to develop and implement a wellhead protection program.

Protecting Kent’s Drinking Water

Kent’s Wellhead Protection Program staff evaluate and reduce risks to groundwater by:

• Identifying areas most vulnerable to impact Critical Aquifer Recharge Areas. 
• Identifying existing impacts and activities that have the potential to degrade groundwater or reduce groundwater availability.
• Developing strategies to prevent degradation or loss of groundwater resources from occurring.
• Monitoring to make sure risks are identified before they can reach a supply well.
• Managing existing impacts to ensure appropriate remediation and clean-up is done.

Wellhead Protection Program staff work closely with the City of Kent Water Operations Division to protect our municipal supply wells.

Wellhead Protection Areas

Delineation of wellhead protection areas helps to identify the most important areas of focus for protecting water supplies and the most appropriate areas to focus limited funding resources.

Land-use Change

Land use within the City limits and surrounding area has been developing rapidly, which can pose gradually increasing risk to the water supply sources. However, in this same time period, the City has been successfully implementing the WHPP, and maintains reliable sources of safe drinking water.

Monitoring Programs

Since the implementation of the Wellhead Protection Program in 1994, City staff have developed management strategies to protect groundwater through pollution prevention, technical assistance, risk assessment activities and groundwater monitoring. 

Groundwater monitoring helps ensure the quality of our drinking water through quality testing and water level measurements in a network of monitor wells. Monitor wells are distributed throughout the Wellhead Protection Areas. These wells are tested for groundwater quality and measured for depth-to-water to understand the health of the aquifer, the groundwater’s elevation below the ground, and the direction the groundwater flows.