Orleans, Iowa — A small town near one of the Iowa Great Lakes has to set up new oversight of its drinking water supply.
For the past eight decades, the City of Orleans has been buying its drinking water from the City of Spirit Lake. Orleans City Attorney Don Hemphill says the Department of Natural Resources wants someone to be responsible for the quality of the water that comes out of the town’s taps and Spirit Lake has notified Orleans it does not want to assume responsibility for the water distribution system in Orleans.
Hemphill says the Orleans City Council has two basic options.
The Orleans City Council has asked an engineering firm to analyze the two alternatives and determine which is cheaper in the long run. Orleans, which is just under 60 miles from Sheldon, near the southern shore of Big Spirit Lake, has about 520 permanent residents according to the 2020 Census, but its population swells during the summertime when the Iowa Great Lakes region becomes a vacation spot.
