Public meeting on water wells happening Thursday, Jan. 12

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ST. CHARLES, Mo. – After multiple water wells are shut down due to contamination, the city of St. Charles said it can’t wait any longer to build new water wells.

There have been ongoing concerns about the drinking water supply in St. Charles for some time. Those concerns will be in the spotlight Thursday night at the Foundry Art Center, just off North Main.

Five of the seven wells there have had to be shut down, including three last year because of contamination concerns. The field’s largest well was shut down just last month.

St. Charles city officials believe the contamination comes from chemicals that Ameren used to clean a nearby power plant. Ameren shared that it’s been working to try and find out what is happening and that it supports ongoing EPA testing to find the source of the contamination. They believe any fix needs to come after that testing is done.

St. Charles city officials explained that the drinking water is safe because the largest well was shut down as soon as contaminants were found, but the well shutdowns have caused St. Charles officials to buy more water from the city of St. Louis – and that is putting an increased burden on the community.

St. Charles’ Dan Borgmeyer said he is looking at building a new wellfield that could cost $40 million. He wants Ameren to reimburse the city for that cost. Here is some of what Borgmeyer and Ameren told FOX 2’s Elliott Davis in a recent you paid for it report.

“We can’t wait for this situation for Ameren and EPA and DNR to move forward, so we’re going to go ahead and move forward on investigating a new wellfield. We’re looking at sites right now we’ve had an engineer to look at it; we’re doing a preliminary assessment on what might be the best site,” Borgmeyer shared.

“For many years we’ve been working with EPA, DNR, and the city to clean up any contamination. We’ve had a great success with that. EPA at the end of the day they’re in charge, and we’re working with them to make sure that we do things by their procedures, by their practices, and to make sure that the area around our substation is clean,” Ameren’s Director of Environmental Services, Craig Giesmann said.

The meeting here is set for 6:00 p.m.