Further tests to determine water supply potential in four areas is being urged for the City of New Ulm.

The recommendation was made following preliminary testing by Eugene A. Hickok and Associates of Wayzata.

CITY MANAGER Richard Salvati said New Ulm must soon begin developing additional water sources.

“You not only have to contend with increasing demand,” he said,”but with decreasing production of older wells.”

New Ulm presently has 11 production wells, some of them in Nicollet County, the rest in Brown County.

“Our problem,” Salvati said,”is summer time when you get more demand, especially from sprinkling of lawns.” Test drilling and test pumping could begin this year, he said.

THE REPORT from Hickok and Associates concerns itself specifically with exploration of well water sources. A broader report concerning New Ulm’s overall water supplies is now being drafted.

Hickok and Associates conducted electrical resistivity surveys (electrical probes to pinpoint sand and gravel aquifers or areas with potentially good water supplies) in four areas of New Ulm:

1) An area east of the Minnesota River running from Hwy.15 to a point 3,500 feet to the north;

2) An area northeast of the new municipal sewage treatment plant, bounded by the Minnesota River on the north and the east and the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad on the south and west.

3) An area west of Hwy. 68 and 15 and lying between the Cottonwood River and the Fireside Restaurant;

4) An area from 21st Street N. northward about 4,600 feet,between Broadway extended and the Minnesota River.

HICKOK AND Associates made five recommendations to the city:

1) Test holes should be drilled at the four locations at eight test hole sites:

2) Options should be obtained on the four locations before drilling begins;

3) A complete and carefully controlled pumping test should be scheduled at the test sites if they prove favorable during the test drilling;

4) If sufficient water is not available from either one or a combination of these sites, further resistivity should be undertaken.

5) A 48-hour controlled pumping test should be scheduled at the test well drilled in 1965. The well is located near Riverside Park east of the intersection of Front Street and Sixth S.

“IT WOULD be a good idea,” said John Holmquist,representative of Hickok and Associates, “to retest the test well” to further establish its potential as a production well site.

George W. Boyer, registered professional engineer with Hickok, said,”all four areas in which electrical resistivity surveying was conducted show potential for groundwater development. A test drilling program should be pursued to further verify the extent of the acquifers which appear to exist from the analysis of the electrical resistivity survey.”

The well drilled in 1965 was one of a series of test wells drilled in an attempt to secure water for the Northwestern Malt and Grain Co. It is believed that this well is capable of delivering 200 to 400 gallons a minute, Boyer said, but it must be test pumped to verify its present yield.

HOLMQUIST SAID testing procedure would include:

-Drilling a test hole;

-Determining if water can be pumped from the hole;

-Building a test well and beginning to test pump;

-Digging one observation well.

COSTS FOR testing will include $1,000 for each test hole; $1,000 for each observation well; $10-foot for each six-inch test well (or from $1,000 to $2,000 per well)

Other wells serving the city range from 60 to 200 feet in depth.

New Ulm Daily Journal

May 12, 1975