Waukesha Water Commission Approves Emergency Repairs to Fix Well Failures

Waukesha Water Utility’s well no. 10 on Wolf Road failed 51 days after it was installed in June 2009. A lightning strike had knocked it out, but the repairs were made and the well continued to pump daily three million gallons of water that met the EPA’s radium standards.

“Everything was running along beautifully up until Feb. 6, 2011, which happened to be Super Bowl Sunday,” said Jeff Detro, operations manager at the water utility.

While Feb. 6 was a big win for Wisconsin, it was not for the Waukesha Water Utility. An electrical shortage caused the failure, but with massive repairs to come to get the well back online before the summer months, the Waukesha Water Commission had to approve emergency repairs to the pump.

The emergency declaration will allow the pump to be fixed for $290,440, according to a Waukesha Water Utility memo. The commission approved the expenditure Thursday night at its regularly scheduled meeting.

The Waukesha Water Utility believes the majority of the repairs will be covered by insurance, but because of an unusual circumstance, the insurance carriers are still trying “to determine responsibility for this loss,” the memo states.

 “On Feb. 28 I was called to the site. What they showed me was 65 feet above where the pump should have been, the cable was severed,” Detro said. “We pulled out an additional 40 feet of pipe to find no pump, no seal, no motor. One of the couplings had separated and the equipment fell to the bottom of the well – 2,145 feet to the bottom.”

A video camera was ran deep into the ground to see where the pump had gone, Detro said.

“There was nothing,” Detro said. “No pump, no seal, no motor. Non-retrievable.”

Even if they had found the equipment, which apparently sunk too deep into the ground, the pump was likely to have been damaged.

“At that point the insurance companies were extremely interested,” said Detro, adding that the companies were looking to see where the fault lies in the damage.

With the city facing a June 2018 deadline to reduce radium levels in its water supply, the well failure shows why the utility is looking to create a new water supply. The utility has to be able to meet its highest maximum demand of radium compliant water with its largest well out of order.

The utility currently has two wells that experienced problems. In addition to approving the emergency repairs to well no. 10 Thursday night, the commissioners also approved spending an estimated $53,000 to repair problems with well no. 8. That well had an electrical short as well, but its motor had been replaced in October.

The emergency repairs means the water utility can seek the repairs without placing the project out to bid to speed up the repair process.