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Commission approves temporary water-well access agreement for property owner; agreement ends when rural water accessible
Summary
Ellis County commissioners approved a temporary agreement allowing Adam Pray access to the county's Dakota well for limited use until he can obtain rural water service; the agreement includes separate metering, usage limits and prohibitions on high-water uses, and it terminates once the property has access to rural water.
On Oct. 14 the Ellis County Commission approved a motion to authorize a water-well agreement that gives Adam Pray temporary access to a county-owned Dakota well at the county public-works site, subject to terms and reporting requirements.
County staff explained the agreement is a temporary measure tied to prior purchase-closing documents for the public-works property and intended only to allow short-term, limited water use until the property has access to rural water service from Trego County (the rural water district). Adam Pray spoke and clarified: “We are not effectively creating a water district out of our well.”
Key terms and clarifications discussed on the record: - The county’s well is a private Dakota well; the agreement requires Pray to test and treat the water and to pay for any treatment and his own connection costs. - The well usage will be metered separately; staff said the separate meter would be installed before the county’s meter so Pray’s usage can be reported independently to the water office. - The agreement contains explicit limits on use: it prohibits high-volume water activities such as extensive lawn irrigation and commercial pool- or spa-filling; such prohibited uses would terminate the agreement. - The agreement terminates automatically when the property gains access to rural water service, whether or not the owner connects.
County staff and commissioners discussed permit allowances for the well. Public works staff said the county holds an industrial-use permit and later stated the county’s permit is for 15 water acre-feet and that 1 water acre-foot would be available for development use; staff also said county usage this year has been about 5% of the permitted annual amount. The transcript includes earlier remarks by a staff member referencing “a half acre of feet” in discussion of industrial-use allowance; that phrasing was not definitive and appears inconsistent with the later staff clarification about the 15-acre-feet permit. The article records both statements and treats numbers as staff-reported figures.
After discussion, a motion to approve the attached water-well agreement and authorize the chair to sign passed by voice vote: yes 3, no 0, abstain 0. The commission instructed staff to return with any recommended fee structure (electricity surcharge or water-fee equivalent) before final billing arrangements are set.
