The City of Grand Forks has hit water.
Capital works director Ben Stevens told city council this week that efforts to locate another well for the city’s water system have paid off. The leading location is on the disc golf course on 68th Avenue, across from No Frills.
The city already has five wells on its sytem. Staff reviewed many existing hydrological reports to come up with potential well sites. In addition to the disc golf site, top candidates included airport property at the far south end of 2nd Street and the north end of Columbia Drive. Drilling was conducted at each of those locations.
“It would be difficult to overstate how this program went,” Stevens said. “Some of that is the research that we did, some of that is just being fortunate. We’ve heard of other municipalities that have drilled up to five wells and not found a viable well, and that was certainly a risk here.”
Instead, all three wells turned out to be viable, at least in terms of flow, including two Stevens described as “absolute gushers.” The airport well, which had the smallest quantity, was also the only one that didn’t meet quality standards. Stevens said as a result, it’s being written off entirely.
But the disc golf course well has a rate nearly double that of the city’s other large wells, and no treatment is required.
“Straight out of the ground it meets all Canadian drinking water quality guidelines,” Stevens said. “And so the fact that both of those big boxes, pump rate and water quality, are checked is just a huge win. So we have likely found the city’s next well.”
The other test well, on Columbia Drive, also showed a high flow rate. It would meet drinking water quality standards with some filtration for manganese, so it could be an option for the future.
Stevens said once the city has commissioned its new reservoir, staff will return to council with options to design and bring a new well on board.
