Proposal sought from engineer, new monitoring wells approved

SEELEY LAKE – At their Sept. 15 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board followed their committee’s recommendation to seek a proposal from Water & Environmental Technologies (WET) and voted to install up to 14 additional monitoring wells.

The Board’s committee heard presentations from two engineering companies, WET and Morrison & Maierle and two manufactures, SepticNET and AquaTech Systems, that responded to the District’s Request for Qualifications. District Manager Bill Decker said he reached out to a third engineering company multiple times but could never get them to set up a meeting date.

The committee felt that recommending a specific system or manufacturer was premature at this point. Every presenter felt that more data needed to be collected before a solution could be tailored to the District. The committee felt that SepticNET and AquaTech Systems should both be considered when the time comes to select a specific system.

While Decker felt both engineering firms gave good presentations, the committee recommended the Board pursue WET for engineering going forward. The committee felt that WET spent the time to dig into the Preliminary Engineering Report from the previously proposed sewer and had a better understanding of the District.

The Board took the committee’s recommendation and unanimously voted to request a proposal and contract from WET to be the District’s engineer.

At last month’s meeting the Board requested WET put together a proposal to drill more monitoring wells in the District.

WET proposed installing 10 groundwater-monitoring wells in public right-of-ways. The proposed wells use one-inch schedule 40 PVC flush thread casing with 10 feet of factory slotted screen at the bottom of the well.

Decker explained that the smaller size was chosen because existing well logs show the ground to be very rocky and the smaller casing could bend around rocks better. Decker said he would be the one taking the tests with equipment provided by WET.

The proposal includes providing well location and boring logs but does not include any testing or surveying of the wells. The total cost of installing 10 new monitoring well is $13,605. The District’s budget for the monitoring wells is $23,000.

Most of the new wells were proposed in the area of town with the most density of development east of Highway 83 between Redwood Lane and Cedar Lane. The remaining wells would be on Boy Scout Road near the mill office and on C Street.

The Board discussed adding additional well sites to gain a better understanding of the groundwater in the other areas of the District. The additional wells would still be within the budget and would be located in the northern part of the District and in Dog Town on Riverview Drive.

The Board unanimously voted to approve the proposal and authorized up to four additional wells per the engineer’s recommendations.

The next Board meeting is scheduled at the Seeley Lake Historical Museum and Visitor Center (the Barn) Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. The meeting will also be available via Zoom. The agenda and information on how to participate will be posted on the District’s website https://seeleysewer.org/