Call it old-fashioned water, if you will.

Hundreds of households in the county get their drinking water the same way the pioneers did more than a hundred years ago: They drill a hole in the ground and pump it.

Exact statistics on the number of people in the county who use untreated well water as their prime source of drinking water aren’t readily available, but the county has been issuing permits for anywhere from 20 to 40 new wells per year for the past several years.

“I’m sure we have more people drinking well water today than we did five years ago,” said Jim McDaniel, an environmental health specialist who inspects wells for the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department. “Building has really picked up in the rural parts of the county, and that has meant more wells.”

That fact leaves Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson scratching his head. Just as puzzling is the reason why many folks have drilled wells over the years: Lawrence city commissioners have placed high hurdles in front of people who want to hook onto treated rural water district lines in an effort to control rural growth.

“It is all just very counterintuitive,” Johnson said. “You would think, here we are an urbanizing progressive county, and we’re withholding under false planning pretenses the availability of treated water. It just doesn’t make sense.”

It also can be frustrating. Steve Krysztof, of rural Baldwin City, already was forced to move from his home because it is along the route for a U.S. Highway 59 expansion. He purchased ground in Rural Water District No. 5 and said he immediately began trying to get a rural water meter.

“They told me I would be put on a list, and I waited about a year,” Krysztof said.

He eventually decided to drill a well because he previously had well water and was pleased with the taste and lack of a monthly water bill. But he said he still wants a water meter – and may get one through a new round of allocations by the water district – because relying on a well can be risky.

“There is always a question with a well,” Krysztof said. “When you are dealing with the water table, you just never know what may happen.”

Cap it

City commissioners over the years, however, have seen logic in restricting rural water availability. City leaders have long been concerned that the growth of rural homes on 5-acre lots scattered throughout the county will create financial and planning problems for the city when it eventually expands into those areas.

The city commission on several occasions has had to help residents deal with costly issues related to sewers or roads in former rural subdivisions that are now in the city. Plus, having one home set on 5 acres isn’t good use of the limited land resources the county has, city leaders have argued.

So, as far back as the 1970s, the city started placing conditions on how many new water meters several Douglas County rural water districts could add each year. For decades, the cap on new water meters basically was 1 percent per year. In 1999, the city increased it to 2.5 percent per year for some districts.

The city is able to place those restrictions on certain rural water districts for one simple reason: The city provides the treated water to those districts. The rural water districts actually own the water, through water rights, that they provide to customers. But several rural water districts do not own the necessary treatment plants needed to sanitize the water, so they contract that service out to the city of Lawrence.

Ralph Leary, who lives southeast of Lawrence in rural Douglas County, is one of many county residents who use well water. The county issues between 20 to 40 permits for new wells every year for the past several years.

City leaders have been reluctant to remove the caps, in part because county commissioners have been reluctant to eliminate the 5-acre exemption, a part of the county’s codes that essentially allows anyone with 5 acres or more to build a single-family home without going through the city-county planning process.

But that all changed this month. County commissioners approved a new set of regulations that does eliminate the 5-acre exemption. Now, people wanting to build a rural home will have to agree to several conditions, including reserving at least 40 percent of their property for future development in the city, and agreeing to create a ghost plat that would show how the entire piece of property would be developed if it ever becomes annexed into the city.

With the new rules, county commissioners want city commissioners to begin loosening the restrictions on rural water availability.

“It is just not a very good policy,” Johnson said of the city’s meter caps. “And frankly, everything historically would tell you that it hasn’t worked. We’ve still had the growth out in the county.

“We want the city to do its part to make rural water more available. Our hope is that is what they’ll do. I would even say that is what our expectation is.”

City Hall talk

Whether that is what the city plans to do is an open question. Mayor Mike Amyx said he definitely does want to have serious discussions with Rural Water Districts No. 4 and No. 5 – the two districts that have city restrictions that are growing the fastest – about reworking both of those contracts. Both districts have submitted formal requests for the city to renegotiate the contracts that expire in 2015 and 2013, respectively.

“We’ve been asked to meet with them, and we need to honor that request,” Amyx said. “What I do know is that good water is something all people deserve to have.”

City Commissioner Sue Hack also said she hopes the new regulations will allow the city to loosen the restrictions.

“I think what we have done over the years has been a bit heavy-handed,” Hack said. “That’s not what we strive to be.”

But there’s also sentiment on the five-member commission not to hastily make any changes to the rural water contracts. City Commissioner Boog Highberger said he would like to see rural water replace untreated well water, but he does have concerns about rural growth.

“I think it might be wise to monitor the new regulations to see if they are working,” Highberger said.

Health concerns

For some people, new changes won’t matter much. There are plenty of people who choose to drill a well even though they may be able to hook onto rural water.

“I have used well water ever since I was born,” said Ralph Leary, who lives southeast of Lawrence in rural Douglas County. “I just like it better. It doesn’t have that chlorine taste to it. My brother and I have had it every day since we were born, and we’re darn near 70 and still kicking.”

Johnson and others, though, are hoping people see that there are potential public health issues related to well water use.

Johnson said the county has been fortunate that it hasn’t had significant problems with water wells becoming contaminated. But the largest threat to contaminated wells is generally thought to be household septic systems. As the rural parts of the county add more homes, it also creates more sewage septic systems coexisting with water wells.

“We’re not expecting major problems in the near future, but making rural water more available certainly makes it less likely,” Johnson said.

McDaniel, the health inspector, said he usually encounters about five or fewer water wells per year that become contaminated with bacteria related to septic systems or other waste. In those cases, the wells generally can be treated with a large dose of chlorine and allowed to go unused for a couple of days.

But there is a catch, McDaniel said. The true number of wells receiving some form of contamination may not be really known. That’s because there are no state or local regulations requiring water wells to be tested on a regular basis. The health department offers a screening for $30, but McDaniel said the majority of well users don’t have it done.

“We try to encourage people to have their well water screened every six months or a year,” McDaniel said. “We try to get people to understand that this is running water underneath the ground. You might not be doing anything to contaminate your well, but someone up stream 5 miles or so might be doing something.”