Colwell getting new city well for Christmas, at last

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

It’s taken longer than hoped, but Colwell is getting a new city well.

B&B Drilling of Fredericksburg began setting up on Tuesday, Nov. 26, to begin drilling what is expected to be a 300-foot-deep well to supply clean treated water to the community.

The community has gone through a year of delays getting it started, said Mayor Jeff Wright, who said he hopes the new system is up and running by the first of the new year.

Colwell learned more than a year ago, in the fall of 2023, that the 50-year-old pipe in its existing municipal well had become full of holes, allowing sand and small pebbles to infiltrate the water.

The community had the well cleaned and the existing sand sucked out, making the water cloudy but usable, but that was only a temporary fix, Wright said.

The long-term answer was a new well, but the holdup in getting that project going has been funding.

It was originally hoped that a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant would pay 80% to 90% of the estimated $100,000 to $150,000 cost of putting in a new well, but Wright said the USDA determined that the city’s old well had simply worn out.

The grants are available to help communities that lose their source of fresh water because of an emergency, but not to replace a well that that becomes unusable because of age and natural deterioration.

The new well will now be funded through a variety of loans, paid back through charges to the several dozen homes and businesses in the community, Wright said.

The latest bids have brought the price down to about $95,000, he said, and 75% of that will be paid through a loan from the National Rural Water Association, which provides low-cost loans for water projects, according to the organization’s website.

The remaining money will include a loan from First Citizens Bank, Wright said.

Each line hooked up to use the water will pay a small new-well fee each month, Wright said, in addition to the fee everyone pays to use water.

Water usage in the community is not metered, he said, because the cost of meters and having someone to read them and keep track of usage for billing wouldn’t be worth it.

Neil Brandenburg, owner of B&B Drilling, was working with employee Wyatt Ohm on Tuesday afternoon to get his rig set up to begin drilling.

He said this is a typical job for him, and not much different from a private well except that the space between a 10-inch diameter outer casing and the 6-inch pipe that will bring up the water will be filled with cement, instead of the more typical bentonite (a soft plastic clay) on a private well.

Brandenburg said he was confident they’d reach a good supply of water within the 300-foot depth planned for the well.

Although there hasn’t been a ban on using the water or a boil advisory for the current city well, both the quality and the quantity of available water has suffered, because running the pump on the city well at its usual speed sucks more sand and pebbles into the system.

“We slowed the well way down. It runs slow and its a lot of work to keep everything clean,” Wright said.

Drinking water has been donated for community members to use, include an entire pallet of more than 2,000 bottles of water from Hy-Vee in Charles City, and Wright said he had made arrangements to buy water by the tanker truck from the Charles City municipal system if needed, but fortunately it didn’t come to that.

A spot 44 feet east of the city shed was deemed the best spot for the new well. The heated shed will contain the new chlorine injection site and flush valves needed to connect the water supply to the city’s water pipes.

Adams Plumbing and Heating of Osage is doing the plumbing to get the system connected once the well is finished.

The system will need to be “shocked” with chlorine and undergo many tests to make sure it meets Iowa Department of Natural Resources standards before it’s available for use, Wright said. Adams plumbing will do a lot of the testing, he added.

Wright said he really wants to thank all the people who have helped out getting the community to this point where the new well is really being drilled, including the residents of the city for all their help and patience.

He said he also wants to thank Jeff Kisch, of Kisch Excavating of Charles City, for getting the site ready for the new well, and for also planning to trench the line from the well to the shed.

“It’s a team effort,” Wright said. “I just thank everybody.”

Brandenburg, the driller, said the new well will likely have a lifetime of at least 75 years.