Water everywhere

 Watershed

My watershed is drained by the Little Floyd River. Which may also be called Sweeney Creek, although I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say that. It starts north of Sanborn. One map showed it starting a few miles away, and I was thinking that Neave and I could walk it. But it's much longer than that, but I'd still like to trace it.

USGS provides a little more specific information on their website. According to them, Sweeney Creek and the Little Floyd start in the same place near Sanborn, but Sweeney Creek ends and it's only called the Little Floyd somewhere between Oak Hill and Olive Avenues.

The last place Google maps shows the creek is just south of 310th St between Polk and Redwing Avenues. The USGS coordinates mark a point north of 300th St, between Redwing and Redwood Avenues. I guess we'll have to look into it. It's sweet to have a kid who will gladly come along on this exploration.

Water Source

We get our water from two places: a well shared with extended family, and the Osceola County Rural Water System. Our well comes from near the Little Floyd, about a half mile east of our house. The water is completely untreated, and we only use it for outside and animals. Growing up, some of the faucets and all the toilets in our house had it. My mom and brother got giardia from it, and that really slowed down our drinking of it. 

The Osceola County water system started pumping water in 1981. We are the last house on our branch. From the "History of Osceola County Rural Water System, Inc." in QUENCH Magazine, June 2020:

"The South Subsystem encompasses all of O'Brien County, and supplies the water needs to the Cities, Towns and Villages of Archer, Moneta, Gaza, Sutherland and Calumet. The South Subsystem obtains its water from shallow wells in an alluvial aquifer between Peterson and Sutherland along the reaches of the Little Sioux River. The water treatment plant is located in the same vicinity just tot he wets of the Little Sioux River and has been in operation for the past thirty years. The new treatment plant (under construction in 2017 - 2019) is now finally finished and can produce water at a rate of 2,400 gallons per minute. There is also a new one-million-gallon finished water storage tank on site to gather water during production for distribution during peak demand times of the day."