"PRINCETON, Iowa—From the beginning, the new well was a headache.

Late in 2022, an overly powerful pump caused eight months of costly water main breaks in Princeton, a town of nearly 1,000 residents on the banks of the silty Mississippi River.

Installing a smaller motor seemed to fix that issue, but revealed a different, all-too-familiar problem: nitrate contamination.

In 2009, Princeton had capped their 40-year-old auxiliary well after several years of racking up state violations for high nitrate levels.

Since then, and after years with no backup water source, the town invested nearly $800,000 to drill a new well and build an accompanying water tower."

Anika Jane Beamer reports for Inside Climate News June 3, 2026. [2]