The City of Grand Island gets its water from 21 wells that lie on land between two channels of the Platte River.  Each well is capable of pumping 1100 to 1500 gallons per minute.  The wells pump the water from the ground into a central basin.  At the Platte River Pumping Station, there are three large pumps that move the water from the basin to three locations in town.  

In 2008, testing for State regulatory requirements had indicated composite uranium levels to be approaching the Maximum Containment Level (MCL) established by the EPA.   Testing of individual wells for uranium indicated some wells exceed this MCL.  To allow use of these wells during high water system demand periods, additional piping was installed in 2009 for blending with lower uranium concentration wells, keeping our water supplied to the City below the MCL.  As a proactive measure, in case uranium levels cannot be controlled below the new MCL by well blending, the Utilities Department completed a detailed investigation to determine uranium removal methods and evaluated those best suited for the Grand Island system.  In 2011, the City of Grand Island contracted with WRT (Water Remediation Technologies) to provide equipment and services to remove uranium from the wells at the well field.  The system was placed in service the summer of 2012 and continues to remove the uranium from the wells at the well field.  Four vessels are filled with a media that absorbs the uranium out of the water.  Once the media has absorbed as much uranium as it can, the media is removed by WRT, and new media is installed to continue removing the uranium from the water.