Show O Wednesday January 1 2003 A3 and regional news Locdt state aims to solve water woes with well By Joe Rowley staff writer the need for a backup It's no fun getting stuck in a pinch with no way out After finding themselves in just such a situation in August 2(X)1 Wellsville lawmakers decided it was time to provide themselves an alternate water supply and drill a new city well Workers recently finished drilling that new well and City Administrator Don Hurtle said he hopes it will he ready for use by the end of May Wellsville has plenty of water (lowing into its system supplied by several springs that are tapped most of the year and a well behind the city office downtown But a harrowing experience made obvious to Hurtle In August 2001 the pump on the 'city well broke down in the middle of a period With the springs providing much less water during the dry summer months the city had no backup when the well broke down and nearly ran out of water Hartle said He didn't want to ‘ find himself in that situation again “If a very petrifying experience if you're responsible for providing culinary water and you get to the point where there aren't many glass- left in your system" Hartle said The new well is near the city's cur- rent well at about 50 E I (X) North It is about the same depth und provides about the same How even when drawing from both wells at the same high-dema- : time The wells are 16 inches in diameter and about 400 feet deep! Both can provide 3000 gallons per minute on a continual basis Hurtle said Digging a well is a “real process" Hartle said After bidding for the job workers began drilling at the end of August The top 100 feet of the well is drilled wide to accommodate a concrete lining to keep contaminants out of the hole Then a solid steel pipe is run the full 400-fodepth of the well Workers then use an indus-ful- ls trial knife-lik- e tool to punch holes in the pipe at the proper depths to allow ground water to flow into the well A plunger-lik- e tool is used to suck sediment through the perforations clearing a clean path for the water to take into the well and the sediment is cleaned out of the pipe Finally workers pump the well until the water starts flowing clear Residents may remember a day in December w hen fire hydrants around the city were opened up and the city dumped water into the storm drains That happened when the city tested the new well to ensure it could meet the demand that would be placed on it To do so the city had to pump water from the well at 50 percent of the expected demand in this case making 4500 gallons per minute for i 1 ot Amalga OK with current boundaries 12 continuous hours Pumping both wells at the same time on Dec 18 the city was able to pull 75(H) gallons per minute out of the ground The day with the highest water demand recently was in July 2(H) I when Wellsville residents used authorities take on challenges of change with resolve BYU-ldah- o While other cities in the valley are aggressively pursuing ambitious annexation plans lor the next 20 years the city of Amalga is content' to remain a small town “We're not looking to grow a lot" said planning commissioner Jerry Munk City officials will he meeting in the coming weeks to pul together the city's annexation plan and will he soliciting feedback from residents on possible annexation sites Each municipality is required by slate law to have an annexation pol' icy The city of 445 is grow ing at a rale of about one to two percent a year Mayor David Wood said Amalga likely won't push beyond 4N(H) West und the edges of the Bear River on the east “We're surrounded by the river so we're just going to follow the river" Wood said Most residents own to where the water is "Thai's probably a reasonable place lo go" Munk said The cily doesn't have the infrastructure lo prov ide serv ices even if it did want to annex across the river toward Smithfield “I think for tis to justly prov ide any service over there wouldn't he warranted" Munk said Amalga is also restricted in what it can do because most people have private septic tanks nol municipal sewer The amount of water available to service future growth also is in limited supply "We havq water hut not a lot for By Arrin Brunson staff writer a series ar LuceroHerald Journal Family Home Evening Eli David A Bednar who is the president of BYU-ldah- o speaks with students at a at the school: Landfill closed no garbage pickup The Logan City Landfill will be closed New Year's Day' and there will he no garbage pick-u- p Wednesday's garbage will be collected with Thursday's and residential containers should be out by 7 um because normal routes will nol he followed the cily announced Tuesday Agenda J The River Heights City Council meet at 7:30 tonight at the River Heights City Building 520 S' 500 East Agenda items include: Discussing changes to the minor subdivision ordinance will Correction Students officials warming up to school’s intramural sports By Arrin Brunson staff writer Fans of the Ricks College Vikings athletic teams suffered a major loss when the intercollegiate programs were canceled in the fall of 2(XM) Although some are still smarting from the sudden announcement that came from leaders of the LDS Church in conjunction with the cstab-- ' othlishmcnl of BYU-ldah- o ers say they see the wisdom of the decision Jack Bowman recreation director for the city of Rexbuig coached baseball part-tim- e at Ricks College lor eight years before the edict was announced 18 months ago Raspberry Days for 2003 in error The calendar njcenlly published by The Herald Journal contained an error Bear Lake Raspberry Days are Aug 7 8 and 9 in 2003 f Idaho — The new cliche at BYU-ldah- o “Rethinking Education" sounds catchy hut officials at the former Ricks College say this is serious business "We're not kidding about that" said (’resident David A Bednar "We've challenged some pretty traditional assumptions — no lank the wav we admit students the nature of our curriculum" BYU-ldah- o Academic Vice President Max Chcckctts went so far as to use the word "miracle" to describe some of the changes (hat have taken place as administrators have gone about the task of rethinking education "The chairman of our board President Hinckley talked to the faculty specifiSecond in cally on two occasions and he said we need to move forward with faith" C'heckelts said “We could have a long discussion about what that means but the fad that people are willing lo step into a place that sometimes seems dark and hope the light follows them is pretty remarkable" More than I (NX) employees have ventured into an uncertain future during the past IS months that Ricks College has been transformed from a two-yecollege to a four-yea- r university The changes have been sweeping said C'heckelts who earned his dcklorate at Utah State University in veterinary science and has worked on (he Rcxhurg campus for more than two decades In many higher education institutions there becomes an adversarial relationship between faculty as a body and the administration or the board Checkells said That is not the case at Ricks for the mo st part Chccketts said "When you introduce the kind of change that this campus has just gone through probably the most remarkable thing is the level of trust that has been developed between the administration and the faculty" Chcckctts said “Could I give you names of a dozen faculty members that would just love to rip up the administration? Yeah I could but we have over 4(X) faculty und there aren't a hundred of them (disgruntled faculty) out there They aren't a majority" One ol'the greatest challenges faculty members have faced is developing bachelor degree programs that can he completed in 20 credit hours compared to the 28 credit hour requirement at most institutions Chcckctts said "The greatest blessings come back to families because one of our guiding principles w as that we keep education affordable The most significant cost of education that people rarely talk about is the opportunity cost that is foregone when a student is in school and they could be out making money” he said Another component of the “rethinking educais the requirement tion” philosophy at BYU-ldah- o in 90 percent ol' the programs for students to complete internships Over I (XX) students served internships in 2(X)l-0- 2 und Chcckctts estimates that 500 to 6(H) more than that will complete them in the current academic year Accreditaon requirements have been the impc- tus for many changes on campus The BYU-ldah- o prospectus to the Northwest Association of Colleges and Schools was the largest ever submitted lo the agency Checketls said Although BYU-ldah- o received candidacy staus accreditation REXBURG Sit AMALGA on A6 Logan 1 ©GO By Mark Randall staff writer In brief ’ 27O50OO gallons of water in one day That makes only about 1870 gallons per minute The next step in making the well usable as an alternate source of water for the city is to put the water through extensive tests and receive approval from the state to use it as culinary water The city will then develop a source protection plan and begin construction on the pump house and delivery system Hartle hopes that process will he complete by the end of May Drilling the well costs about $100000 Building a pump pump’ house deliveiy lines electrical sys- terns and routine testing will likely run about another $ 5(I(XK) Both numbers are only rough estimates though Hartle said “There’s still a lot of resentment with the coaches There’s still some bitterness Some of them have found ' other jobs but others are still up there” he said “It was a nice thing for the community but I understand the philoso ' Jason a new weight room on the campus of When the school cut out intercollegiate athletics the money was spent on improving facilities for students BYU-ldah- Tillberg works out in o phy of moving on to something else” These days Bowman says he watches a few more high school games than he did in the past and he's been impressed with the level of competition in the BYU-ldah- o intramural programs Proposals to sponsor “intru-collegial- e" competitions have Bowman said potential “The way they initially talked about it the coaches including myself didn't think of doing they hud a chance Sit SPORTS on A6 See CHANGE on A6 |