Fairbury Water Sourcing Committee Continues Work On Best Case Scenario

By Gordon HopkinsProgress is starting to flow on the Fairbury Water Sourcing Committee work to find the best scenario for water for the city.Fairbury’s Water Sourcing Committee met Friday morning, March 1, 2024, to discuss what progress has been made since the previous meeting held on August 30, 2023.The City of Fairbury created the Water Sourcing Committee to locate a lower-nitrate drinking water source for the city. The city’s water is currently supplied by three wells in the East Wellfield. Those three wells have consistently tested in the higher range for nitrates. Crystal SpringsThe city also has a well at Crystal Springs, which has shown a lower nitrate content. However, that well has been offline since 2021 due to the presence of biofilm. If that could be brought back online, then that water could be blended with water from the other wells, thus lowering the overall nitrate content.Before that can happen, the biofilm problem must be addressed. Biofilm is a collection of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and also to a surface.On August 30, 2023, the Fairbury City Council voted to disinfect the well.Brian Schmidt, who serves on the committee as well as the city council, provided an update, “Basically, we’ve completed the disinfection out there. We’ve had divers out there twice so far. The first time they came they scrubbed the inside of our galley system.”“It was mostly concentrated on the west end,” said Schmidt. “Growing around the pipe that connected our galley system to the first well to the west.”After disinfecting came chlorine. Schmidt said, “They started the chlorine treatments. They did several light doses of chlorine in there to kind of just reinforce what the divers had scrubbed down the first layer of biologicals. And the divers came back a second time. They capped that well to the west.”Schmidt explained why the process has taken as long as it has, “Since they were there that time, we did several more chlorine treatments, a couple of them are a little bit heavier doses. The water system engineers, they wanted us to get a 24 hour chlorine residual in there. Up until these last couple of treatments, we were not able to do that. The biologicals were eating up the chlorine as they put it in so quickly that we couldn’t even get to stay there for 24 hours. Last couple times, it did stay there for 24 hours, which is good.”Schmidt said he was optimistic that the treatments were working, “We feel good about killing everything in there. Just this past week, they’ve started the pumps out there again and I think, for about two days now, we have been pumping water through our filter system out there and discharging into the lake. Basically, testing our filters to see if we can pump water through them again.”More testing will be required before the well water can be pumped and blended with the city’s water. Schmidt said, “I think it’s positive results so far.” I Street WellThe committee also discussed another well. Referred to in the meeting as the I Street well, Schmidt said, “A couple of weeks ago, when Curtis (Arnold) was helping out the water department, he says if we’re looking for a water source, ‘Why not check that well up north?’ And almost everybody says, ‘What well up north?’ There apparently is an active, registered well up there. It’s apparently about 144 feet deep. It’s still registered, but it’s not been used in decades.”“So just for curiosity, the guys went up there and checked it a couple of weeks ago, it was still hooked up,” said Schmidt. “It’s deep enough that, I mean, it’s not surface water so we wouldn’t have to filter it. We probably would have to chlorinate it. But we need to test to see if it’s even worth looking at.”The committee voted unanimously to spend up to $7,000 to inspect the well and determine if it could be brought back online.

Passing The Torch

Allgood, Roger W. LTC, USA (Ret)

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