Project to improve water volume is a ‘huge success’ Spring City reports

By James Tilson

Associate Editor

9/12/2019

SPRING CITY—The year-long project to improve the flow from Spring City’s five springs is complete, and according to Mayor Neil Sorensen, is a “huge success.”

            Tyler Faddis, project manager at Jones & DeMille Engineering in charge of the spring redevelopment project, spoke to the Spring City council last Thursday to give the final report on the project.

            “A year ago, we were getting less than 60 gallons per minute (gpm),” said Sorensen. “Now, we’re collecting almost 300 gpm.”

Faddis added, “The old system just wasn’t collecting the water from the springs.”

            Three of the springs – Birch, Prince Albert and Mudhole – had been redeveloped last year before the project had to stop for winter weather last October. When workers were finally able to get back to the spring in June, they were able to work on Upper Ox and Lower Ox springs.

According to Faddis, after redevelopment Upper Ox is producing 40 gpm, and Lower Ox is producing 25-50 gpm. All five springs together are producing between 250 – 300 gpm.

Faddis detailed what was entailed in redeveloping the springs. “The collection lines were undersized, and the collection areas were dirty and not filtering the water,” he said.

“So we pulled out all the old collection areas, along with all the mud and roots that had gotten into the springs. We exposed the water sources and built new clay-walled dams with graveled collection areas. We put perforated pipes under the collection areas, with longer collection lines to finish up.”

Faddis said the new spring collection areas should be good for at least 20 – 30 years.