Brewster Council approves emergency water resolution

BREWSTER – In a special meeting last Friday, May 31, city council members recognized that the city is facing an emergency regarding its ability to provide an adequate volume of high-quality water to its ratepayers and approved a resolution to accelerate the identification and construction of a new supply well.

Citing a May 30 memorandum from city engineers J-U-B Engineers, Inc. of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, city Public Works Director Lee Webster explained that the manganese levels in the city’s two river wells represent both risks to public health and significant maintenance issues.

The smaller of the two river wells with a 30 horsepower (hp) pump produces 300 gallons of water per minute (gpm) with manganese levels some 13 times greater than the maximum contaminant level (MCL). The larger river well (75 hp) pumps 750 gpm and its manganese level is around five times above MCL.

This leaves the city’s third water source, the Canyon Well (75 hp) that pumps 500 gpm with low manganese content. However, the city requires approximately 1,050 gpm to reliably cover daily peak demands.

“The city cannot meet this demand without the use of the 30 hp River Well,” the J-U-M memo said.

The manganese level in the smaller of the two river wells is so high that the city does not use except in the event of an emergency.

“Reliability rules require capacity to be determined with the largest source” (the 75 hp River Well) “out of operation,” the J-U-B memo said.

With the contaminated 30 hp River Well water unusable at its current MCL, the remaining Canyon Well cannot meet city water requirements.

The city is currently under contract with O’Connell Drilling & Supply, LLC, to drill up to six test wells to identify future water supplies.

“Two of the sites have identified productive zones of high-quality water and should be considered for city well sites,” the J-U-B memo recommended.

To accelerate the process to convert both test wells to production wells, a quorum of council members voted to waive the usual competitive bidding requirements and allow Mayor Art Smyth to negotiate a change order agreement with O’Connell to allow construction of production level wells. The contract modification will allow the wells to be online by peak demands in June 2020, an estimated two months before the same project could be completed using the more involved conventional bid process, according to J-U-B estimates.

O’Connell has already been paid for equipment mobilization and is familiar with the test sites that would be converted to production wells.

In addition to the faster turnaround time, “significant economic savings should be incurred by the City bypassing the public bidding process in light of the existing health risks associated with the now present emergency water quality issues facing the City,” a portion of the emergency resolution said.