The City of Lancaster, Ohio, operates two wellfields that provide drinking water to the community. The first water supply well within its northern wellfield, known as the Miller Park Wellfield, was installed in 1932. As the community grew, an additional 12 wells were installed. Throughout the years, a majority of the wells were serviced and repaired; however, their efficiency continued to decline. The City retained B&N to evaluate other potential wellfield locations to either supplement or replace the raw water source. After concluding that the current wellfield was the most practical and financially viable option for continuing to provide raw water to the North Water Treatment Plant (WTP), B&N conducted a hydrogeologic investigation to better characterize the overall vertical extent and grain size distributions of the underlying aquifer.
B&N designed four new water supply wells, ranging in depth from 105 feet to 132 feet, to replace the existing wells. The design included well casings, well screens, filter packs, well houses, level sensors and pumps. The first new well was designed with a 16-inch-diameter stainless steel well casing and screen and was installed, developed and pumping tests were completed under a design-build contract. Based on the successful yields obtained from the new well, and after further consideration, the City requested that the three additional new wells be upsized to 24-inch diameter to accommodate future community growth, and the well designs were accordingly modified.
A well site application was submitted to and approved by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the water supply wells were installed and developed. Step tests and 72-hour constant-rate pumping tests were completed at rates ranging from 3,100 gallons per minute (gpm) to 3,900 gpm. Based on these pumping rates, the new operational rate from just three of the new wells is 10.0 million gallons per day (MGD), assuming the highest-yielding well is out of service for maintenance, as per regulatory requirements.
The new water supply wells provide raw water to the newly constructed North WTP, completed concurrently with the new water supply wells, which the City celebrated the grand opening of at the dedication ceremony on October 1, 2025. In addition to providing high-quality drinking water processed with the best available technology, the City will also supply much-needed cooling water to the new Google Data Center, which is part of Google's strategy to expand its cloud infrastructure, support AI innovations and power services like Search, Gmail and Maps.