KAREN VIBERT-KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette Relief wells line the bank of the levee along Lycoming Creek near West Fourth Street in Williamsport.

A viable and less expensive solution may be available in the ongoing problem of failing relief wells along the levee, which protects vital population areas in the county.

After rejecting bids for the replacement or rehabilitation of 60 relief wells located in Williamsport and South Williamsport, the Lycoming County commissioners heard from Shannon Rossman, director of Planning and Community Development, that contrary to what had been initially instructed by the Army Corps of Engineers, not all the wells would need to be addressed.

“There are a lot of different projects going on with the levee system right now. One of the projects involves a process where the city hired the Army Corps, and their specific engineers and hydrologist to come in and analyze the Northeast-Northwest levees, which we associate as Memorial Avenue and Dewey Avenue areas,” Rossman said. “And while they were up here doing that risk analysis, they toured the entire site.

“They looked at all of the background permits and requirements and all of the engineering that had been done when the levee was put in to get to the understanding of where the levee needs to go in the future in those areas,” Rossman said.

“While doing that, with the relief wells as part of the system-wide improvement framework, which is what keeps both the South Williamsport and Williamsport levees recertified while we work with those individuals on getting the fixes done that are needed or improvements done, they asked us about the relief wells, and our engineer was up here for the whole thing,” she said.

The engineer told them that the county had been instructed by the Army Corps to rehab in kind or replace all the relief wells in the system, which had been designed in the 1940s and 50s. The age of the system had made the bidding process difficult.

“We only have so much information. And people are very wary of drilling in and around the levee when they don’t have all of the information to them. So the bids have been quite high. And we’ve been telling the Army Corps this but unfortunately nobody had ever come to see it. Because the city had hired them to do the risk analysis, they were here, they looked at those wells, and they agreed with what our engineering had been telling them for a long time,” she said.

The county’s engineering had been arguing that it would be a better idea and more cost effective to rehab or replace wells in the areas that get water or seepage. Relief wells are designed to relieve pressure on the levee.

“The areas that are in these higher critical areas, not the entire levee system because their idea back then in the initial design was like every 30 yards there’s a well of the same size and everything. They designed the sections but then they didn’t design to the specific site,” she said.

Although the initial design was to place them every 30 yards, the contractor put them in every ten yards, which made replacing them even more cost prohibitive, which is why the project bids have come in so high.

“The Army Corps now understands and agrees that it would be more cost effective to replace only the wells in critical seepage areas and design them to current engineering standards, so they actually operate properly. They conceded that they feel that there are certain wells out there that will probably never see water,” Rossman said.

“The new well drilling standards, the new analysis and final design will give us what we need to only have to replace the wells in areas where they’re critical. Less wells specifically for the area they’re needed in,” Rossman said.

The commissioners agreed that, after rejecting bids for the relief well project for various reasons, including high costs, that this was welcome news.

“This is really good news for the community because we’re going to have to spend, hopefully, less money,” said Commissioner Rick Mirabito.

A few years ago there had been confusion, Mirabito said, when various federal agencies were offering differing solutions to the relief well problem.

“What we said to them was we need you to talk to each other and tell us what you want us to do,” Mirabito said.

“They listened to us and not only did they listen to us, but as a result they went back and listened to the recommendation of our engineer that it made no sense to engineer this to 1950 technology when we have 2023,” he added.

Because of bids being rejected, either from insufficient information or bids that came in too high, the county did not commit to spending money on work that didn’t need to be done.

“It would have been an unnecessary cost…at 1950 standards. You don’t build a house today at 1950 standards,” said Commissioner Scott Metzger.

Although the vote at the commissioner’s weekly meeting to reject the bids for the project puts work, which had been anticipated to begin much sooner, on a delayed timeframe, all the commissioners agreed that the delays prevented the county from doing unnecessary and expensive work on the relief wells.

“There’s a lot of things happening right now. I know that people can’t see that shovel in the dirt…it’s kind of good we didn’t have that shovel in the dirt or that drilling well out there because now we can do what we wanted to do and replace what needs to be replaced at the current engineering standards,” Rossman stated.