Council approves new city well

by Nathan Arneal
Published 6/24/26

North Bend will be getting a new well in the coming years.
At its June 16 meeting, the North Bend City Council voted unanimously to install a new city well. Councilman Alex Legge was absent from the meeting.

The city currently has three wells. Wells 1 and 2 are both inside the city limits. Councilman Chuck Krenzer, head of the city’s water and sewer department, said Well 2 is in bad shape and isn’t used. Well 1 has better water, but runs through the Filter 2, which is failing and is due to be replaced.

The city gets most of its water from Well 3, which was installed about a half mile north of the city on County Road 7 in 2018 and has the best water.

Krenzer said hopefully a new well could be installed in the vicinity of Well 3 and could share some of the piping into town with Well 3, which would save on costs. He estimated a new well would cost between 1.2 and 1.5 million dollars.

“To me, the smart thing is to put the new well in,” Krenzer said. “The biggest problem is the funding.”

Other council members agreed that the city could not just depend on one good well.

“If something were to happen to our newest well,” councilman Ken Streff said, “heck, lighting strike could take it out, then we’re running off two junk wells. I know the funding stinks, but I don’t know if we can afford not to do it.”

Mayor Rod Scott agreed that having a backup well is vital.

“We’d really be dumb if something happened and we didn’t have any water,” Scott said.

In other council business, Streff, the head of the parks department, said the lights on Foltz Field need attention. Of the six lights focused on home plate, three of them are burned out, making things around the plate darker than desired.

Streff said he talked to a lighting company that suggested putting up four new poles around home plate and the infield. Streff said just the bulbs alone would cost about $1,500 per pole, plus the cost of new poles. Streff said he asked for an estimate on putting up two new poles.

City clerk Theresa Busse said she talked to the lighting company the city has used in the past and it said it would give the city a price break as a returning customer and said the whole field could get new lights for just under $300,000.

Streff said the council would have to see what the estimates are and see if it is worth the money.

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