Carbon County is having problems with a water pump system at its prison that was installed less than two years ago.

Last week, the county prison board heard reports from Rodney Reeser, the maintenance director at the prison, regarding the pump system needing parts and going down.

Reeser said on March 28, the pump house went into an alarm and that pump three would not engage.

A company was called in and replaced a controller that was not working properly.

On March 31, Reeser went into the pump house to do readings on the water and pump two was making a very loud noise, one he said that was the same as it did before when a critical part started to go.

He shut that pump down and called in a repair company again.

A quote for the part in question costs around $700 to $800, he said.

Reeser said that on April 20, he received several alarms again from the pump house. This time, pump one was shut off due to a high temperature alarm and had to be reset.

“It is just another issue we are having with the system that is a year-and-a-half old,” he said.

One recommendation was to purchase backup parts for the pumps so if they go down, there is no down time waiting for parts to come in.

It was noted that part delays could mean a pump would be down months.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner asked what specific part kept wearing out.

Reeser said it was the impeller, adding that pump three had this part replaced twice already.

“Right now we are running with two pumps, which is not an issue, but if another pump were to go then we might have some issues,” Reeser told the board.

The prison board then approved a motion to get a list of parts to purchase spares of and allow the board of commissioners to approve the list once received. This way it is not delayed another month until the next prison board meeting.

The county did a $256,000 overhaul of the prison’s water system control building equipment in 2020 after failing equipment caused several water problems at the prison, including a water tank getting drained.

The system that had been replaced was the original to the building, which opened for operation in December 1994.

In another matter, Reeser said he spoke with Carbon Engineering regarding well two.

He said the firm is working on getting bid specs ready to get that well up and running again.

That well has been down since 2019 when it was discovered that the well was contaminated with iron.

The well supplied the Carbon County Animal Shelter, which sits next to the prison.