Bismarck gets state help for expansion project at water treatment plant (2024)

Public Works officials in Bismarck are moving forward with a project that will expand water treatment capacity in the region, with some aid coming from the state.

The Bismarck Public Works Utility Department is undertaking an expansion at its main water treatment campus along River Road. The project will enable the plant to betterserve the increasing needs of the city as it continues to expand, according to Public Works Utility Director Michelle Klose.The plant is responsible for handling water treatment for Bismarck and Lincoln. The plant also supplies water for the South Central Regional Water District.

The project has an estimated cost of $83 million. The State Water Commission on June 13 earmarked $50 million through a cost-share grant for the project. Klose said city commissioners worked with state legislators during the 2023 session to set aside the money prior to it being formally approved by the Water Commission.

The remaining cost will be absorbed by the city and paid through current utility water rates, meaning residents will not see any increases to their water bill.

"The residents who are currently paying their monthly water bills, all of that helps us be able to work on these types of projects and these types of expansions," Klose said.

The project will expand capacity by 10 million gallonsper day for a new mark of 40 million gallons per day. Part of the project will include replacing aging infrastructure -- such as processing components, pumps and the existing surface water intake pipeline across the street from the facility.The project will also build a raw water blending structure, and ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis systems, according to the North Dakota Department of Water Resources.

The increased capacity will enable the city to keep up with area demand for water, especially in the summertime when water usage spikes due primarily to lawn watering. The plant sees a summer peak of around 530 million gallons per month, compared to only 200 million gallons per month in the winter, according to the city website.

"Demand in the summertime can vary. A wet year like this, it hasn't been too terrible, but we have hit our peak capacity of 27-28 million gallons a day ... fairly frequently those hot, dry years," Water Treatment Plant Superintendent Jim Kershaw said.

The capacity bump will also enable the facility to treat water from multiple sources simultaneously. Both river intakes -- the surface intake and the newer horizontal collector well just under a mile downstream from the plantwhich collects groundwater -- can pump around 30 million gallons per day. Kershaw said the added capacity will enable the plant to blend the two sources and easily meet demand for the next 20-40 years.

"We're sitting very well for raw water supply," he said. "We got a lot of growth we could do and still meet the demands for raw water."

The expansion will take up space in a building -- constructed in the 1990s -- that sits on the north end of the campus; however, the building will be slightly expanded to the west and north to accommodate the upgrades. The building has been mainly empty since 2012, besides being used for storage and occasional small-scale testing,Klose said.

The project has a complicated timeline, she said. She explained that, due to some supply chain issues, some materials will need to be ordered early and will take two years to arrive.As a result, the project will not be fully completed until at least 2028, with the majority of the work being done in 2024 and 2025.

"We'll have pieces that will be operational earlier," Klose said. "But with full capacity, basically, we'll have that available in that 2028 timeframe."