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City of Glenwood City moving ahead with new well

Bid of $153,000 to drill well!

GLENWOOD CITY — The City Council accepted the low bid to drill the hole for the city’s new well along Third Street near the water tower at their meeting Monday evening, March 20th.

For more than a year the city has been without a second well and pump after they abandoned the well site near the Community Center because the state inspector found numerous deficiencies in the well and pump house. 

The site that has been abandoned is the site of the original well and pump equipment that dates back to the 1880s and was installed to provide water to the lumber mills in what is now the west side of the community.

Kevin Oium of Cedar Corporation presented the City Council with bid data for the well construction. He noted that this bid was just for drilling the well, which will be some 775 feet deep and installing casing and installing and removal of a test pump that will pump 800 gallons a minute to test the new well.

He recommended that the Council accepted the bid of $153,343 from Mineral Service Plus out of Green Isle, Minnesota. Oium noted that this firm was also the winning bid for a well in Menomonie.

The new well is to be drilled to 775 feet deep and Oium stated that the plan is for it to have a pumping capacity of 500 gallons per minute. He compared it to the current pump at Hinman Park that pumps some 900 gallons per minute.

Oium stated that in the bid opening last week, they had received five bids for the work ranging from Mineral Services’ low bid to a bid of $201,227.50 from Sam’s Well Drilling. Sam’s is the firm that the city had hired back in 2015 to pull, inspect and make a recommendation of what it would cost to put the old well and pump, and building, near the Community Center, back in service to state specifications. 

Oium presented the council with drawings of the new proposed well house and the work that would need to be done including the replacement of two private waste water lines that are near the site of the new well. He explained that according to state rules, sewer lines running near a well cannot be of the PVC type pipes and thus the city will have to replace those currently in the ground.

Oium noted that the planned well house, at 26 X 26 feet, will be just a little bigger than the well house at Hinman Park.

Council member Ken Peterson again brought up the question about this new well affecting the private wells in the Walnut Ridge subdivision. Oium assured him that with the private wells, at some 250 feet and the new city well more than 500 lower, it would not affect those private wells.

In other city business, the council received a Library report from Librarian Marilyn Blumer, who noted that the circulation of the library was up and spoke about the other activates of the local Library including the 5th to 8th grade “Stem Program” which is held four times a year and pointed out the family movie night set for March 31st.

The council agreed to change the monthly meeting in April to Tuesday, April 18 on a recommendation of City Attorney Autumn Lindquist who noted that the regular meeting is set for April 17 and because of the election on the fourth, the council’s reorganizational meeting is always on the third Tuesday after the April election, the month’s business could all be done on the April 18th.

The council approved the new Emergency Disaster Plan and Mayor John Larson questioned Fire Chief Greg Holden about his input into the plan. Holden suggested that members of the city council, fire, police and ambulance department meet together to discuss the plan. They set a meeting for April 12, at the fire station.

Other meetings that City Clerk Sharon Rosenow informed the council about included the annual Board of Review, which is set for May 17 with Open Book on May 1. Mayor Larson noted that a representative of the State Department of Transportation is set to meet with city officials this Friday to discuss the Highway 170 improvements. Larson noted the plan is to resurface the highway from Glenwood City to Colfax and currently is scheduled for 2022.

The council also heard from Joan Ludtke, who is president of the Glenwood Area Historical Society. “We are full,” she noted of their museum on Oak Street, and informed the council that the Society is looking for another building to house old wood farm equipment and other items they have in storage that need to be moved. She was asked about the size and stated about 40 X 100 feet was needed. She asked for help from the city.