I received a little update information on a couple of stories that appeared in the Register in the past.

One of the stories goes all the way back to last December, when we ran a story about the Faribault County Historical Society getting a grant for $18,792 from the Minnesota Historical Society.

The grant was for some very necessary repairs to the Church of the Good Shepherd (Episcopal) Church building in Blue Earth.

The local historical group planned to use the money to tuckpoint the foundation, dig out the basement, put down a vapor barrier and then fill the basement floor with a layer of sand.

Last week they did just that.

A group of volunteers which included both ‘Sentenced to Serve’ workers and some students from Elmore Academy were busy in the basement of the church. They dug out several feet of mud and loaded it onto conveyer belts, as shown in the photos below.

The hundred-year-old mud was loaded onto trailers by other volunteers and hauled away.

The group of workers had all of the basement dug out by early afternoon on Thursday, June 5. The next day they put down the vapor barrier and hauled in the sand.

Part of the work in the basement involved digging holes where support posts will be installed. This is being done in order to remove some jacks that had been placed outside to support floor beams. Those jacks are one reason that the foundation has had some damage.

The actual tuckpointing of the foundation won’t be done by the volunteers but rather by a professional masonry crew.

Other work on the building will include repairing and caulking around the windows, and a new paint job.

Members of the historical society keep very busy. They also are finishing constructing a new building that will be moved to the fairgrounds, a general store. It will be in place by fair time, they say.

Another story update came from the City of Easton. Two weeks ago there was an item in the Register about the water in Easton.

The report came from the Minnesota Department of Health and detailed how some bacteria in the water had been found and treated in 2007.

John Becker of the Easton City Council called me and wanted to make it clear that there was no problem with the water in Easton.

That bacteria had been found way back in February of 2007. A notice was sent out at that time to all city residents, and the problem was never serious, he said. “If it had been, the state would have issued an order that residents would need to boil the water before using it, and they never had to do that,” Becker said.

The city turned up the pre-chlorine treatment and installed a post-chlorine treatment. “We cured it right away,” he said.

Since that time they have had the water tested regularly and there have been no further problems. Samples of the water are sent to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Becker said that Mark Willette is in charge of the testing and chlorinating for both Easton and Delavan.

“We stay on top of it all the time,” he said. “We just want to make sure that everyone is aware that there isn’t any problem with the wells or water in Easton.”

Now you know. Its safe to drink the water in Easton.