From the Roundtable: Bottomland wells? Bad idea 20 years ago, bad idea today

My recollections about Columbia’s drinking water go back only a few decades, but it’s always seemed odd that a series of wells would be a sufficient source for a growing city, one that just passed the hundred grand threshold.

Surface reservoirs with distinctive Indian names such as Ashokan and Hackensack supplied water outside New York City where I grew up, and the engineering feats behind the famed mountain-sourced, gravity-fed system require no further tributes.

Columbia’s founders sited their embyronic settlement on the banks of a water source, Flat Branch Creek. As the village grew, a dam across Hinkson Creek created a reservoir. When that proved insufficient, the municipality drilled a series of artesian wells deep into the aquifer as a source of fresh water that originated beneath the Ozarks.

My first drink of water here came from the University of Missouri’s own artesian well system. Drawn from the same aquifer as the city’s first round of wells, MU’s water tasted fine, aside from its relative hardness, to which some attribute certain medical benefits because the hardness is caused by dissolved minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

I’m not sure the same tributes can be paid to the city’s water supply these days. We can all agree that the most stringent measures must be followed to ensure the water is safe to drink. Taste and feel are more personal, thus subjective, judgments.

I remember when the decision was made to use the shallower McBaine Bottoms near the Missouri River for wells, we were told that the water from it would be “different” — softer to those who crave that quality. (Dissolved minerals make soap less effective, or less lathery, than when mixed with soft water.) The city said that by mixing new well water with the harder water from the original artesian wells, the overall quality would continue to be pleasing. For me, city water is OK, but MU’s water still tastes better.

Then came the stunning, at least to me, decision almost 20 years ago to process Columbia’s wastewater through environmentally trendy “wetlands” impoundments within sight of the McBaine well field. At the time, I was spending a lot of time tending to business interests in northwest Arkansas and recall intense debate over the deleterious impact of chicken house effluents coursing into once pristine sources of drinking water in the Boston Mountains. Why would Columbia even think about the potential intermixture of wastewater with a freshwater source?

Now the city is considering whether to drill more wells in the McBaine Bottoms. The answer should be a resounding “NO!” — at least until the matter of wastewater seepage into this comparatively shallow drawing point for the bulk of our drinking water is thoroughly and scientifically resolved.

At the same time, let the trumpets call for Columbia and every water utility in the region to initiate a cooperative effort to improve and expand our present and future water supply. Maybe my dream of future impoundments — a lake or two functioning as public water supply reservoirs — will come true because it will be seen as the best alternative for the public interest. How about Osage Lake and the Oto Reservoir?