MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake’s water difficulties came a little closer to being alleviated this week, according to an announcement from the city.

On Monday, city staff and a contractor worked together to start a 72-hour well capacity test on Well 20, city Communications Director Lynne Lynch wrote in the announcement. During the test period, the pump will produce 1,200-1,500 gallons per minute. If all goes well, Lynch wrote, Well 20 could be fully functional in the next month. Once it’s at full capacity, the well is expected to add about 1.5 million gallons a day to Moses Lake homes and businesses, mostly in the Larson and Knolls Vista areas.

Well 20 goes a long way toward replacing two wells, 23 and 29, that had to be shut down last year due to contaminants, City Manager Kevin Fuhr said.

“Last year we functioned being down quite a bit of water, because of the two wells being turned off,” Fuhr said. “So this is actually just going to alleviate the pressure that we had last year and give us the water that we lost when those two wells went down.”

The two closed-down wells produced about 2 million gallons a day, Fuhr said.

Well 20 has sat idle since it was drilled in 2016, according to the announcement. At that time, the city had to go through an approval process with the Washington State Department of Health before the well could be used, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shut the well down over public health concerns about chemicals left over from Larson Air Force Base after the initial pump testing.

“It was drilled within the Superfund site, which is why the EPA didn’t give us the authority to turn it on,” Fuhr said. “But it's not contaminated. The water has been tested numerous times now and it has no contaminants in it. It's good water to drink.

Well 20, located on Randolph Road, is on the far northern edge of the Superfund site, Fuhr explained, so it’s not close to where contaminants were found in the soil.

Over the last year, the city has been exploring all its options to resolve its ongoing water issues, Lynch wrote. Fuhr said Wells 23 and 29 are going to be turned back on sooner rather than later, although he didn’t have a more specific timeline, and the city is looking at more potential resources as well.

“We're working through some issues,” he said. “I think within the next month or so we should have more information about other water sources.”

Joel Martin may be reached via email at [email protected].