Story County, IA Code Violation Reporting: Response Times (2026)

Chapter 61 governs private wells within Story County, including its incorporated communities, and Section 61.10 spells out when the Environmental Health Department (EH) must inspect and analyze an existing water well or distribution system. EH is required to inspect in three circumstances: prior to or during any transfer of real estate on which a well or system sits, where the seller must obtain and hand the buyer an EH inspection report before or during the sale, covering active wells, secondary source wells, stand-by wells, and abandoned wells, though closed-circuit vertical heat exchange wells are exempt; whenever a well or distribution system is believed to be a health hazard, nuisance, or violation of Board of Health regulations; and whenever EH receives a formal complaint about a well or distribution system, in which case Section 61.10(3) sets a firm clock requiring EH to initiate complaint investigations within three business days of receiving a formal complaint.

EH may charge a fee for each inspection report under Section 61.11, payable to the Story County Treasurer and directed to the Environmental Health Department. This three-business-day trigger is specific to private well and water-supply complaints; it is the only numeric response-time commitment for citizen complaints that Story County's code sets out in writing, so it does not extend to other nuisance or zoning complaints handled under separate chapters.