Mattawa awards well rehabilitation contract

MATTAWA — A Mattawa city well that had stopped working will be put back in service. Mattawa City Council members voted unanimously Thursday to award a contract of about $185,000 to Empire Well Drilling, Wenatchee, to start working on rehabilitation of the well located in Hund Memorial Park.

“The bad news is, you got one bid. The good news is, it was pretty close to what we thought the project was going to cost,” said Steven Wagner of Gray & Osborne, the consulting engineers for the project.

Engineers had estimated the project would cost about $180,600, Wagner said.

City officials had included two optional tasks in the bid package, the first being to take video of the well, the second to make an extra test of water flow. Wagner recommended accepting the first option but not the second, which the council did.

“Haven’t we already sent a camera down that well?” asked council member Tony Acosta.

“Yes, but at the end of rehabilitation we want to video it again and see what we have,” Wagner said. “That helps tell us what the rehabilitation did, and what you’ve got down there.”

The contractor will work on getting the well back in service, install a temporary pump and monitoring equipment, test it and provide chlorination equipment.

The well project is part of a larger water plan under consideration by city officials, and was prompted in part by requests over the last couple of years to annex property into the city. One annexation request, for property that eventually will be developed into about 100 houses, was approved in January, with a development plan. Otherwise, city officials approved a moratorium on annexations until the completion of an updated comprehensive plan. That’s scheduled for fall 2023.

“I know we need Well No. 2 up and running, like, years ago,” Acosta said.

Nancy Wetch of Gray and Osborne, reviewing the city’s water plan at a November 2022 council meeting, said the Hund Park well is the city’s oldest and needed extensive renovations. The city must bring the well back into service to comply with Washington Department of Health regulations to serve its existing population. The city already has two working wells, but the third is needed to meet redundancy requirements, Wetch said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.