The future of the Clancy Water and Sewer District’s plan for a test well remains unresolved as Clancy residents both in and out of the district voiced their staunch opposition to the Marks Ranch test site at the September meeting.
Property owners and officials with the Red Cliff Estates Homeowners Association stated they would fight against any proposal to build a test well, or centralized well system, on the Marks Ranch property in Clancy.
Marks Ranch became the newest proposed site after the Clancy School Board of Trustees voted against building a test well on school property in August. The need for a test well stems from the District’s plan to build a centralized water system to solve the water quality problems due to elevated levels of uranium and nitrites in some of Clancy’s wells.
At the meeting on Sept. 22, residents from the nearby Red Cliff Estates voiced concern over the building of a well on the Marks Ranch property due to its proximity to their water systems. Those in Red Cliff Estates are not part of the water district.
Tammie Chenoweth, president of the Red Cliff Estates Homeowners Association, said that Red Cliff Estates plans to hire a consultant to monitor any changes to their water quality or quantity. “Our HOA is already incurring a cost so Rocky Mountain Operators can start maintaining different records, so when we go forward we are prepared to fight this … when this well impacts ours we are prepared to fight it all the way,” she said.
The HOA was not alone in opposing the Marks Ranch test well.
David Leitheiser, CWSD president, also opposes it.
“This is where I’m speaking as an adjacent landowner,” Leitheiser said.
“I am adamantly opposed to it … I am concerned with just the test well drawing down my well to the point where my pump is exposed and burns my pump out and then I’m out one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars,” he said.
Also opposing the test well were neighboring landowners Charles “Chuck” Notbohm an Bruce Nevins.
“I’m opposed to the well,” stated Nevins. When asked if he was opposed to the well or just the location Nevins clarified: “I’m opposed to the location of the well.”
Bob Johnson, a member of the CWSD, asked Nevins and Notbohm, “Am I getting opposition because of the science, or because of “not in my backyard?”
“Not in my back yard,” one of the men responded, “the only thing I’ve got is my water rights. So in this case, not in my backyard.”
Those opposed to the Marks Ranch located suggested the test well instead be located at the third site listed in the 2018 engineering report. The third location, state land south of Clancy on the west side of the interstate, was deemed the least optimal of the three due to both distance and lack of information on water quantity and quality, said Colette Anderson, PE, the project engineer and architect from Great West Engineering. Many of the questions aimed at Anderson could not be answered by her, but would need to be reviewed by a hydrologist — and one is scheduled to speak and answer questions at the meeting in October. What Anderson could say was that surrounding wells are monitored to prevent stirring up sediment and drying up existing wells during the testing process.
Leitheiser stated that all the objections could be a “time sink” and draw the project out for years.
A motion was made to table the vote on the Mark Ranch property test well until the meeting on Oct. 27.
