Fairhope Hunting For Water Once Again
By: Rick McCann
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News
August 27, 2025
FAIRHOPE, Ala. Once again, the City of Fairhope is on the hunt for more water, even after digging new wells and updating the water system in 2024.
The continual influx of new residents and businesses has proven to be quite the challenge for the once small, quaint city on the bluffs.
During 2024, the City of Fairhope took several actions to address water capacity issues, including drilling new irrigation-only wells and completing a major system upgrade.
A catastrophic pump failure in August 2024 prompted a water conservation emergency, even with the new upgrades in place.
By June 2024, Fairhope completed a major water system project, including a new well and a larger water main. The upgrades increased the city’s overall water pumping capacity from 9 million to 11 million gallons per day.
But now, just a year later, the city has had to hire O’Donnel and Associates Hydro-geological Services of Mobile to oversee the search for possible sites for new city water wells.
The company will search for the right locations to drill new wells, among other things, will be paid $42,000 for the services.
A process is used to determine what area could yield significant water volume and the depth in which the water might be found.
Sometimes finding water is easy, while in other areas, it may take numerous attempts at drilling different spots before water is found.
Many areas of the country use large freshwater reservoirs or pull water from nearby rivers however, the cities along the Eastern Shores are unable to use the nearby Mobile Bay because it is an estuary, a brackish mixture of freshwater and saltwater that is unsafe for human consumption. The bay is also affected by high levels of pollution and bacteria from industrial and stormwater runoff.
Several possible locations have made the list for exploration, and they include near the existing tank-tower on Nichols Avenue, the Barnwell community on US 98, South Section Street near the water treatment plant, the area on County Road 32 and County Road 13, US State Highway 181 near Highway 104, and in the Dyer Road area.
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