Workshop Item: 1 - Robert Therres, Public Services Manager
Title
NORTHEAST WELL FIELD STUDY UPDATE
Background
The City has been working through the process of developing a plan to develop a well field in the northeast area of the City to serve future water needs. The process began in 2012 with a Well Siting Study done by Barr Engineering. This original study showed that, while the area under consideration was a good location for productive wells, there were some unanswered questions and risk that the wells could have significant impacts on surface waters. If the future wells were installed and surface waters, such as nearby wetlands, were affected the DNR could restrict pumping rates from the new wells.
As a result, the City hired Barr Engineering to do a detailed three phase study to reduce the uncertainty and risk that future wells could be restricted and help answer the questions as to the potential well field capacity, location and spacing. The phases of the study are:
· Phase 1 - Detailed paper study
· Phase 2 - Pumping test using existing City wells
· Phase 3 - Site specific pumping test using new well #18 as a test well.
Phase 1 has been completed and work is now underway on Phase 2. Currently the project for installing the monitoring wells that will be used during the pumping test is out for bid. The Phase 2 pumping test is scheduled to be done around the third week of May this spring. Phase 3 is tentatively scheduled for late summer/early fall this year.
The attached summary and Power Point presentation goes into further detail.