Greenfield Boil Order Extended, Another Week Possible

Water customers of the city of Greenfield will remain under a boil order, possible continuing into next week, the city of Greenfield announced in a Facebook post on Monday, Feb. 28.

Users of city water had been under a boil order since Feb. 25, when it was discovered that one of the two pumps serving the city's two water towers had stopped working overnight. The pump failure led to low pressure in water distribution system.

"Good Friday morning Greenfield," read a Facebook post by the city. "We lost a well pump to one of our towers last night causing low or no water pressure. We are in the process of filling them back up so you should have good water pressure by this afternoon."

By afternoon, it had become clear that bringing the disable pump back online wasn't likely to happen, as a subsequent post by the city explained.

"Good afternoon Greenfield," started the post made by City Clerk Mark Davis. "I want to update you on our low/no water pressure issue. This morning we were hopeful that the pressure would be back up by this afternoon but now it is looking like tomorrow morning."

Davis said that with only one of the two pumps working, refilling the storage tanks in both towers is going much slower than it usually would, and asked water customers to do what they could to use as little water as possible.

"We are asking everyone to please conserve water so this one pump can keep both tanks filled without [it] burning out," said Davis, via the Facebook post.

Helping to alleviate the low pressure system somewhat was local industry Pennington Seed, which allowed the city to tap into their private well as temperatures dropped below freezing to help build up supply and pressure, preventing making a poor situation worse.

"Over the weekend, Pennington Seed was kind enough to allow us to tap into their well ... ," said Davis. "We are certainly grateful to them for that."

In the Monday morning update, the city announced that a crew was onsite to remove the old pump and install a new one, as it was found that the old pump had been struck by lightning and burned up during last week's "thunder sleet" weather event.

"That is the root of the problem," Davis said in the post. "We hope the new pump will be installed by tomorrow evening."

The Feb. 28 post stated the City Maintenance Supt. Andy Miller expects the boil order to remain in effect until at least next week, so water customers will need to continue to boil water until an announcement is made that the order has been lifted.

"We are so sorry for all the inconvenience this has caused and we appreciate all the support we have received from our water customers," said Davis. "I will update you when we know more. Take care and have a good week: the weather looks fantastic."

Questions can be directed to Greenfield city staff by calling the municipal center (new city hall) at 417-637-2532.