$800,000 Later, Iowa Town's New Municipal Water Well Is Pumping Undrinkable, Nitrate-Laden Water

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Late in 2022, an overly powerful pump caused eight months of costly water main breaks in Princeton, a town of nearly 1,000 residents on the banks of the silty Mississippi River. Installing a smaller motor seemed to fix that issue, but revealed a different, all-too-familiar problem: nitrate contamination.

In 2009, Princeton had capped their 40-year-old auxiliary well after several years of racking up state violations for high nitrate levels. Since then, and after years with no backup water source, the town invested nearly $800,000 to drill a new well and build an accompanying water tower. City officials hoped the new well would give their riverside community room to grow. Instead, it was pumping undrinkable water.

In September 2024, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources notified the city that its latest water samples had violated the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum nitrate contaminant level of 10 milligrams per liter. Water from the well tested at 12.1 milligrams of nitrate per liter, a level deemed unsafe to drink for infants and pregnant mothers. The city immediately shut down the well. That was two years ago.Princeton’s main well, drilled in 1963, still provides enough clean water for the town’s 350 households and businesses. But relying on just one well is precarious, said Chris Rindler, the city’s public works foreman.

“We have 1,000 people that need water, potable water. And to not give them that reliable backup, well, I don’t think that’s an option,” he said.Rindler continues to sample the recently decommissioned well for nitrates. Concentrations peaked in spring 2025 at around 16 milligrams per liter, he said. Since shutting down the well, not a single sample has fallen within the allowable range. Meanwhile, Princeton’s primary well, drilled to the same depth as both decommissioned wells, has yet to run afoul of nitrate water quality standards, a fact that baffles Rindler and geologists he brought in to investigate Princeton’s case.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03062026/princeton-iowa-contaminated-drinking-water/