Contractors Northwest Inc., of Coeur d'Alene, is working on a $1.4 million project to replace the well that serves the Kingston water district, which is located between Cataldo and Pinehurst, in the village of Kingston, Idaho.

The water district's current water supply has been classified as groundwater that is influenced by surface water, says Michelle Johnson, a project engineer for the Coeur d'Alene office of Boise-based J-U-B Engineers, which is designing the project. This means the district's water, which currently comes from a well near the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River, could be contaminated by pollutants in the surface water, particularly during high-water conditions. The district had the option of either treating its drinking water or finding a new source of water, and determined that relocating its well would be the more cost-effective of the two alternatives, Johnson says.

In the project, the contractor will be constructing a concrete-block well house for a new 100-foot-deep well and backup well that have been drilled in the city of Pinehurst. The contractor also will construct a 250,000-gallon water-storage tank and a water transmission line to Kingston. The Kingston Water District serves about 250 customers, Johnson says.