The City of Meridian is working to make emergency repairs to one of the city’s eight freshwater wells after part of the wells pump mechanism malfunctioned.

In a May 17 meeting, Freshwater Treatment Plant Manager Jimmy Eckman told the council the broken well was the cities largest source of drinking water for North Meridian.

“That’s our largest well on the north side,” he said. “It’s going on 3 million gallons per day.”

Eckman said the city can continue to provide enough fresh water from its other wells, but the problem would need to be fixed before demand peaks in the hottest part of the year in August and September.

“We really feel that it needs to be an emergency action made to where we can get it in before the hot months of the year,” he said. “If we can’t get it in, I can’t promise there won’t be issues with the water in North Meridian.

Problems with wells can often be difficult to diagnose, Eckman said, since the majority of the well is underground. In this case, he said, water started coming out of the tube used to add lubricating oil to the pump’s bearings.

“That tells us the bearings down in the hole are not getting oil,” he said. “We caught that and actually saved a whole lot of money because if we hadn’t caught it would have been really having to replace the whole well.”

Fully understanding what went wrong will have to wait until the well is dug out and can be inspected above ground, Eckman said.

By declaring the repair an emergency, the city will be able to make the repairs without going through the usual procedure of advertising for bids, a process which can takes several months before a contract is awarded.

With a need to have the well repaired quickly and supply chain issues increasing lead times on parts, Eckman said an emergency repair would be the only way to get the repairs done before demand peaks this fall.