LYNNVILLE, Iowa — A Jasper County Sherriff’s Office investigation looking into potential tampering to Lynnville’s water supply continues.

Early Tuesday morning Lynnville experienced water issues. The water tower was emptied. Some residents of the town of about 400 said they didn’t notice a difference. Others said when they turned on their water that morning, the pressure was very low, barely coming out. It depends on where you live in town, on top or the bottom of the hill.

The town was able to call Central Iowa Rural Water to come fill the tower back up.

But then on Thursday night they experienced outages again and citizens were asked to conserve water. The town was also providing bottled water to those who needed it.

As of Friday morning, the water was back as normal. The quality was never an issue.

During all this on Wednesday, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by Lynnville to look into potential tampering to the water tower. The mayor of Lynnville, Mark Newberg, covered all bases doing this, although the potential cause may likely be old systems and tower equipment. 

“Central Iowa Rural Water had opened up the pit and went down into the pit,” Newberg said. “They had indicated to our city man – they asked him if he had messed with any of the valves. Our city man indicated that he had not. So, that’s where the belief that maybe someone had turned the water off. There really is no knowledge of what really happened. But I do know that there was a fuse blown in the pump house as well, and it could have been because the pump was actually calling for water and wasn’t receiving the water.”

The investigation is still ongoing. However, the mayor said he would like to replace the old systems with new ones soon, especially if the cause of all this was in fact outdated equipment. That, of course, costs money that the town would have to figure out.

Iowa News: