The So-Hi Domestic Water Improvement District (SHDWID) is located in Mohave County, Arizona approximately seven miles northwest from the city of Kingman, Arizona. The southwest corner of the District fronts U. S. Highway 93. The District boundary encompasses the entire Section 31 and the South one-half of Section 30 in T22N, R17W. In the 1960’s, the area was sub-divided into residential lots by W.T.S. (Williams-TurnerSmith) Developers. The residential lots were then divided into four areas and named So-Hi Estates Units 1 through 4. The District had a service area that included approximately 470 parcels, 150 homes and roughly 310 residents. The developers installed a water system and formed the W.T.S. Water Company to operate and manage the water supply and distribution system. The W.T.S. Water Company had an agreement with rancher, Leonard Neal, to pump domestic water from a Neal well, and W.T.S. then distributed water to the sub-division. Later, the well was sold to the City of Kingman and the community was sold to a California developer. The W.T.S. Water Company continued to operate the water distribution system by an agreement with the City of Kingman to draw up to50 gallons per minute from the City tanks. The usage was limited to 2,160,000 gallons per month.
By the early 1980’s, the W.T.S. Water Company system had fallen into disrepair. After many ADEQ non-compliance notifications, the property owners of the sub-division purchased the entire system from W.T.S. Enterprises. The property owners formed So-Hi Domestic Water Improvement District, obtained a Community Development Block Grant to develop a Master Plan prepared by Sunrise Engineering, Inc., and secured part loan/part grant funding to implement Master Plan Alternative 1. Alternative 1 was the construction and installation of a new supply and distribution system.
As of January 2012, SHDWID has approximately 520 parcels, 250 homes and 500 residents. SHDWID has a 40-year lease with the City of Kingman for Johnston Canyon Well Number 3. The capacity of the well pump is 100 gallons per minute. (2,160,000 gal per month – 50% duty cycle of pump). The water is pumped roughly 4 miles, climbing 700 feet over the Cerbat Mountains, then dropping 900 feet to the storage tanks (200,000 gal and 50,000 gal). From the tanks, the water is distributed by gravity flow to three pressure zones. A booster station feeds a fourth pressure zone.
