Sidney council backs water wells weatherproofing, back

(Sidney) -- Sidney officials have taken another step to improve portions of the city's water system.

During its regular meeting Monday, the Sidney City Council unanimously approved work orders with Utleig Engineering for an estimated $6,000 to analyze options for weatherproofing the city's water wells and roughly $15,000 to formulate a backup power design for the wells. Brian Hiles is a senior engineer with Ulteig. Hiles informed the council that Water Superintendent Chris Sokolowski sought weatherproofing for the wells after running into issues last winter.

"With the new wells that were installed last year, over the winter, Chris had issues with the wells freezing up," said Hiles. "So, we're helping to look at solutions for weatherproofing those wells so he doesn't have those freeze up problems again this year."

Additionally, Sokolowski says the current backup generator requires hauling an old machine down in a trailer, which is also not weatherproof. Hiles proposed looking for a similar setup to what is currently at the city's water plant.

"The new water plant has a new generator associated with it that would provide power in the case of power going out and needing to produce water, but the only problem with that is that you're water wells do not have a generator with them," Hiles explained. "So, there's no way to produce the raw water to go to the water plant so you basically have a generator at the plant that wouldn't really be doing much."

He added there are a couple of options they plan to pursue. One involves implementing a new generator design or hooking it up to the generator at the plant.

"We would be looking at how that existing generator is setup and if it's possible to run that down," he said. "And if it's not, then looking at design and plans for a new generator, an automatic transfer switch, and whatever else needs to go into providing that temporary power for the wells themselves."

Hiles says the plan is to begin work on the projects this fall due to long lead times on the industrial-scale generators.

The council also unanimously approved a compliance strategy memo for the city's wastewater treatment facility. Hiles says the action comes at the recommendation of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as new regulations for the city's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit regarding ammonia nitrogen and e-coli go into effect in September 2027.

"Based on past results, those limits have been exceeded four times out the last 20 results," said Hiles. "So, te DNR put a recommendation in there for the city to look into possible solutions for dealing with those two items."

Hiles says their proposal includes recommendations for keeping up with maintenance and monitoring test results. He adds there is also an October 1st deadline to submit the memo to the Iowa DNR.

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