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ST. CHARLES — The city plans next week to resume using three drinking-water wells shut down over the past two years because of contamination in the wellfield.

John Phillips, the city’s utilities supervisor, said Wednesday that the state Department of Natural Resources this week approved the city’s use of a newly-installed charcoal filtration system at its water treatment plant that will remove the contaminants.

He added that the city is working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency on its plan and that the EPA hasn’t objected so far to the restarting of the three wells.

EPA officials could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday.

The three wells were the latest of six shut down by the city over the past few decades because of wellfield contamination, some of which stemmed from the use of cleaning solvents at an Ameren substation.

While the EPA said the contamination in the water hasn’t exceeded allowable levels, the city voluntarily shut down the wells as a precaution.

The renewed use of the three wells, plus two others to be phased in later, would allow St. Charles to substantially reduce the amount of water it buys from St. Louis.

St. Louis currently supplies most of St. Charles’ water; it’s carried by pipeline from a St. Louis-owned plant on the Missouri River in Chesterfield.

The EPA last month ordered the city to stop running another well on a testing basis because it may have been spreading contamination from the area of an Ameren substation. The city on Aug. 7 had begun testing that well, which hadn’t been used to produce drinking water since 2005.