I Street Well Not Happening

By Gordon HopkinsHopes that the long-disused well located on I Street, just north of the Heritage Care Center, could provide an alternative, low-nitrate source of water for the City of Fairbury have been dashed.Olsson, an engineering firm the city uses, examined the well to determine if it could be brought back online. Eleven feet of sediment was removed from the bottom of the well. Once that was done, “down hole well inspections” were conducted and it was determined the well does not meet modern requirements. According to an email from Brian Schmidt, chair of Fairbury’s Water Sourcing Committee, “This well does not have screens at the bottom, but rather large slots in the concrete. This will not work by today’s standards. It is believed this casing may have been left over oil field parts. Also, while the concrete casing is still good, the morter (sic) between the joints is not. These problems can be fixed, but the cost would now be considerably more than a new well. So as a result we have now hit the hard stopping point on the I Street well. A new well location on the north side of town is still a possibility but could not be online by next summer. So for now that project is on hold.”According to Schmidt, $30,292 had been spent on the I Street well project. However, Schmidt said, “I will also note, this money can be partially reimbursed by a grant we are operating on.”Schmidt indicated 25 percent will be reimbursed to the city. Crystal Springs WellWith the failure of the I Street well, and hoping to get a new source of water by next summer, the Water Sourcing Committee will be returning their focus to the Crystal Springs wellfield, which has been offline since 2021 due to the presence of biofilm.Biofilm is a collection of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and also to a surface.Last year, the Fairbury City Council approved a budget $70,000 for the cleaning and disinfecting of the Crystal Springs wellfield and gallery. Schmidt confirmed the entirety of the budget was used. Despite this, the biofilm problem remains.In his email, Schmidt explained, “Even though we failed to get the biofilm under control, we can still temporarily pull water from the gallery as is. Through everything we did in the last year, we did discover the biofilm seems to mostly be in the west half of the gallery. There is nothing visible in the east half. Historically water has always been drawn out of both sides evenly. Curtis (Arnold, Fairbury Wastewater Superintendent) is currently experimenting with only pulling water from the east half. By the next meeting we’ll know if this is a possibility.”However, before the Crystal Springs wellfield can be returned to operation, there are still two hurdles to overcome. PumpsThe first of those hurdles are the pumps, which are currently housed in the now-defunct municipal power plant. That building is contaminated with asbestos. So much so that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is requiring anyone that enters the building to wear a respirator.While it is currently unknown how much it will cost to clean up the asbestos inside the building, Fairbury Mayor Spencer Brown told FJN last year, “There are different levels of cleanup, but for a complete remediation of all the asbestos it’s estimated to be almost a million dollars.”A less costly alternative would be cleaning up just the portion of the power plant where the pumps are located and isolating it from the rest of the building.Another alternative is to build an entirely new pump house or relocate the pumps to a new pump house. Thus far, the city has no estimates how much a new pump house would cost. In May of this year, the mayor told FJN, “ I believe the pumps inside the power plant are from the 1960’s so they have considerable age on them, so more for reliability sake, we would look at building a new pump house with new pumps and technology.”Until a more permanent solution is decided on, Schmidt said, “Bockmann, Inc., out of Lincoln is putting together an estimate to create temporary access to the pumps.” Underground ReservoirThe other hurdle is cleaning the underground reservoir. The Water Sourcing Committee met Tuesday, September 17, to discuss the matter.“So, kind of what we’re looking at is to clean out the reservoir, getting into usable condition again,” said Schmidt at the meeting. “It does need cleaned out. It was due to be cleaned out anyway and then, after it set idle for the last three to four years, it really needs to be cleaned out.”Craig Reinsch, Lead engineer for Olsson, was at the meeting via phone. He told the committee, “The cost I received for a diver cleaning was in the range of $11,000 to $12,000.”However, Reinsch noted this did not include disinfecting, which would require draining the reservoir, something he would like to avoid doing, “There is some groundwater concerns of what that may do to the reservoir. So we’re trying to do it wet.”Reinsch said, “But one of the challenges is, if we get it cleaned out right away, then we would have to place it online and get it chlorinated and back in use. So, I know there’s been some discussion of, do we do that now, or do we wait until closer to next spring or summer?”Schmidt recommended waiting, “This is something we should do, probably, after we figure out the pump situation.”

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