Aberdeen residents might notice crews drilling holes in their part of town as the City installs some new piezometers and cleans out some existing groundwater monitoring wells.

City engineering manager Deven Matkowski said Friday three new meters are being installed, although two are replacements for units that have been damaged.

The third is in an area that's a gap in the City's piezometer network.

The devices, which stick out of the ground like a post, measure the water table underground in a part of town that has been vulnerable to ground movement and sliding.

"They're essentially a well. But we don't pull water out of them. We use them to measure the water table under the ground," he said.

Installation of the three devices will cost about $60,000.

The City has more than 100 piezometers in Aberdeen to monitor groundwater levels and prevent events such as the sliding in the Van Horne area that occurred in the 1990s, he said.

Some of the other piezometer wells need to be cleaned out this summer, which means drilling crews will be around then, too.

The City also has 30 small wells in Aberdeen to pump out groundwater.

"We have 30 wells in Aberdeen that we pump water from. They run daily. Not all day, but once or twice a day," Matkowski said.