Floodwater from recent heavy rains, snow melt, and flooding may potentially carry pollutants with it.  During floods, water comes into contact with things it normally wouldn’t, such as gasoline, animal waste, chemical storage facilities and more.  If your private drinking water well has been impacted by flood water,  your water supply may have been contaminated with pollutants carried in the flood water.

The City of Auburn, population 3,000, is located in southeast Nebraska, near the Little Nemaha River, approximately seven miles upstream of its confluence with the Missouri River. The City receives its drinking water from a wellfield located east of the community within an alluvial aquifer along the Little Nemaha River. The wellfield consists of 11 vertical wells averaging 45 to 50 feet below the ground's surface, pumping up to 150 million gallons per year.

Boating season is once again upon us and it is time to remember to clean, drain and dry watercrafts, angling equipment and any other items that come in contact with a waterbody between uses.  Zebra mussels, an invasive small mussel species, can live out of water for up to 2 weeks in the summer time in the right conditions and cleaning, draining and drying watercrafts and equipment for at least 5 days before launching in a different waterbody is pertinent.  Currently there is no effective way to eliminate 100% of zebra mussels from a waterbody so prevention is key. 

Lakes are classified in a number of ways to help us understand how they function, make predictions, assess ecosystem health, and establish management strategies or regulations.  They are most commonly classified by the lake’s ability to support plant and animal life, or productivity. They can also be classified based on the water supply, how humans use them, plant and animal communities, or how they were formed (e.g.  glacier retreating, volcanic eruption, made by man).