In a special session the Washington City Council met at City Hall Tuesday at noon. Photo by Sally Y. Hart

With urgency the Washington City Council approved a $43,950 change order for one of the city’s wells during a special session meeting.

At noon Tuesday, five members of the council approved the fix for Well #6 unanimously. The well had been producing 600 gallons of water per minute, but since being re-cased its output had declined to half that amount. Kyle Wellington with the water department said the well has been troublesome lately, “It’s kind of been a nightmare for us, Well #6. It is important that we get it fix though, because if one of our other wells were to die on us we would maybe survive 48 hours before we’d run out of water.” Mayor Sandra Johnson said because of this situation she wanted to hold the special session instead of waiting a week for a regular meeting.

The work will likely begin later this week and residents will not see a change in their water service. The contractor will get rid of the accumulation of solids and dirt from the bottom of the well, inject 8,000 gallons of muriatic acid into the uncased portion of the well, air surge the acid for six hours, and then remove the acid and solids by pumping the well. Once the meeting adjourned, before leaving the building, city staff was calling the contractor to begin work as soon as possible.