The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming
The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming
One well pump fails completely, second pump also experiences issues
The council discusses the water emergency on Tuesday morning.
Pine Haven Public Works has been dealing with a complete failure of one of the town's two water well pumps and a drastic drop in the operation of the second.
Department director Sean Glass was not able to revive the first pump and the latter, which is supposed to draw more than 100 gallons per minute, was pumping only 20 as of Tuesday morning.
Mayor Karla Brandenburg said that if they could get one of these motors to work as they were intended, "We'll be ok."
A Code Red had been sent out to residents asking them to mitigate any use of water beyond consumption (no watering gardens or lawns, etc.) on Monday and Brandenburg was impressed with their cooperation.
"With everyone's cooperation, it's holding and maintaining what people are using," she said. commending Sharon Coleman, owner of the carwash, for closing the facility down until the issue was resolved.
The temperature throughout Wednesday and Thursday was expected to rise above 100°, though, creating a dangerous situation for the fire department according to Fire Chief TJ Gideon.
The chief had already put into motion the installation of water tenders (collapsible water tanks) around town from which to draw in case of fire, the hydrants being relatively useless, and had explained the problem to the Moorcroft and Sundance departments.
The council came together Tuesday morning to discuss the advisability of calling a local emergency to allow Crook County Emergency Management director Ed Robinson to call on state resources to help in case this issue could not be corrected as soon as the governing body hoped.
After attempting to get help from a few different contractors to pull and replace the failed pump, the mayor explained the problem to Water Systems Drilling out of Gillette and they were able to stop their current job temporarily to move their equipment to Pine Haven for this more urgent effort. Brandenburg hoped to see that well back online by the end of the week.
Under advisement from experts in this situation including Water Guy's Duaine Fawcett and Gideon, the council called a state of emergency and contacted Robinson, who arrived later to begin ascertaining the immediate needs of the town residents. The governing body ensured that bottled water would be on hand at Town Hall as well as the community center during this crisis.
Under this crisis, everyone on town water is obligated to follow all restrictions and the Crook County Sheriff's Department will have authority to enforce them.
This situation is an unanticipated and significant cost to the town, but if the pumps went down due to a lightning strike, which has been noted in surrounding areas over the last few months, a measure of funding may be available to help the town recover from this expense. As of this report, that information is not yet available.
