It may only be a “couple of weeks,” but a delay is a delay.

When it comes to the Mower County Jail and Justice Center project, the word delay is “verboten.”

No matter. The word came up Tuesday when the Mower County Board of Commissioners discussed the progress or lack of it with its jail and justice center project.

It fell to Ray Tucker, 2nd District county commissioner and chairman of the building committee, to share the bad news with the county board.

“We’ve had problems with one of the geothermal wells,” Tucker began, “They’ve had to abandon the old drilling site and find a new one after a cave-in.”

“The plan calls for moving the well-drilling to another site and give in another try for about $20,000 total, according to their estimates,” Tucker said.

The actual cave-in occurred two weeks ago on the Robbins block property across First Street Northeast from the courthouse. However, the contractor had to wait for the official “go-ahead” from county officials.

Actually, two wells are being drilled at the Robbins Furniture and Design Gallery and Thoroughbred Carpet building sites.

Craig Oscarson, county coordinator, said, “We need the information we will get from the test wells for our evaluation of the property and whether or not we can bury geothermal cables there.”

According to Oscarson, the information gleaned from the test wells will tell county officials whether or not there is “conductivity” at the site for the intended geothermal purpose.

What the drillers hope to find is enriched high conductivity geothermal fill, according to engineers.

In other words: a geothermal fill material composed of one or more high heat conductivity materials alone or in combination to produce a fill that can be used to cover and encapsulate geothermal ground coils to improve heat transfer between the ground and the fluid inside the coils and to improve the rate of heat recovery of the fill in contact and in the vicinity of the coils.

According to engineers, the thermal conductivity of the ground indicates how easily heat moves to and from the fluid in the ground loop. Inaccurate thermal conductivity estimates reduces system efficiency and leads to higher installation and operating costs.

County officials don’t want that to happen in a project that has already increased by $2 million on paper.

The commissioners had set a ceiling of $30-million for the project.

When KKE Architects, Inc. came back with an early design of the jail and justice center facilities, they estimated the price to build a 128-bed jail and justice center at $32 million.

Critics say debt service will push the final bill higher; maybe, $40 million.

The dilemma for both sides — county officials and critics of the project — stems from this: Yes, architects and a construction manager are working on designing a new jail and justice center (courtrooms, county attorney, court administration and correctional services offices) for the aforementioned $30 to $32 million.

Yes, also, the county plans to remodel the existing Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center for $1.6 million ($800,000 from the county and the city each).

Add to that figure, the $1.5 million the city gave the county to acquire the Robbins block and the price goes up further.

Add to those figures costs to remodel the current LEC and courtrooms into office spaces for the Mower County Health and Human Services department now operating from the former J.C. Penney Store in OakPark Mall and the price tag to do everything — with a $30 to $32 million bond and its debt service — and the $40 million figure critics say it will cost is not an exaggeration.

On that point — keeping costs down — Oscarson said this week, the county commissioners have directed he and finance director Donna Welsh to scrutinize every account, every fund, every balance everywhere for whatever moneys exist to help reduce the amount of money the commissioners will have to seek in a bond referendum.

It’s “only” another $20,000 and it’s “only a two weeks delay,” but after earlier postponements, remember: The city of Austin received an extension from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 to have the two blocks downtown ready to turn over to the county for the new facilities — and the fact that summer is approaching may make some people nervous that the project can move forward as scheduled.

The county has done test drillings at the proposed new jail and justice center site, particularly in the area of the Usem’s Inc. building now owned by Austin Medical Center.

Those test wells were dug to determine if any soil corrections would have to be made to accommodate the two-story jail/justice center’s construction.

Meanwhile, only two wells — the one abandoned and a new one being dug behind George’s Pizza in the Robbins block — are for geothermal conductivity purposes only.

“The new well is just something that must be done,” Oscarson said. “Without the information we expect to receive from the test wells we won’t know what the payback on turning the Robbins block into a geothermal site will be.”

According to Tucker, the money for the test wells will come from the $1.5 million received from the city and push back the schedule a “couple of weeks.”

The city of Austin has agreed to make a two-block parcel of land — Fourth Avenue to Second Avenue Northeast and First to Second Streets Northeast — available for construction of a new jail and justice center.

The city has not announced any progress on its efforts to acquire the privately-owned properties in the two-block parcel.

The county plans to acquire the Robbins block immediately south of the proposed new jail and justice center properties, demolish the historic three-story building and all other buildings on the site, clear the site and turn it into a geothermal site for heating the new facilities.