BROOKINGS – The Brookings City Council approved three resolutions Nov. 23 relating to the water treatment facility and piping project, the 34th Avenue sewer replacement project and the lead water service line replacement project.

Councilor Nick Wendell was absent.

Speaking at last week’s council meeting were Eric Witt, water/wastewater and engineering manager for Brookings Municipal Utilities; Joe Honner, P.E. with HDR, Inc. and project engineer; Greg Maag of the First District Association of Local Governments; and Christina Crouse, First District Association of Local Governments, economic development officer.

Witt said the three resolutions were necessary for the State Revolving Funding application process. BMU is hoping to capitalize on the Federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and/or infrastructure grant funding for the project.

Resolution 21-102 authorizes the application and designates a representative to certify and sign payment requests for the water treatment facility and piping project. 

Resolution 21-103 authorizes an application for financial assistance, authorizes the execution and submittal of the application and designates a representative to certify and sign payment requests for the 34th Avenue sewer replacement project.

Resolution 21-104 authorizes an application for financial assistance, authorizes the execution and submittal of the application, and designates a representative to certify and sign payment requests for the lead water service line replacement project.

Resolution 21-102

Honner explained Resolution 21-102, saying the water treatment facility and piping project is the largest project to be discussed, and there are three aspects of the project:

• Source water, which is the wellfield expansion;

• New water treatment plant;

• Finishing the water distribution piping to pump the drinking water into the existing distribution system.

Source water comes from two wellfields, he said, the North Wellfield, north of town, and the East Wellfield, east of the existing east water treatment plant.

“The intent of this project is to incorporate two additional wells at the north wellfield and four additional wells at the east wellfield,” he said, adding new raw water piping would take water from the North Wellfield and the East Wellfield to the new water treatment plant.

“The next aspect of the project is a new water treatment plant,” Honner said. 

The new water treatment plant will be a 6 million gallon a day, lime softening, media filtration facility, “which is the same type of process that your two existing facilities have,” he said. 

It will have new administration facilities. The filtration system will capture and recycle backwash water, 1.5 million gallons of storage at the facility replacing the 1.5 million gallons of storage at the north treatment plant which will be decommissioned as a part of this project, and there will be lime sludge lagoons on site to handle the solids, Honner said.

The final aspect of the project is the distribution system, he said. Honner explained how the different water lines – a 16-inch and a 20-inch – would run from the water treatment plant north to tie into the system, and south to 20th Street South and extend to the 20th Street South water tower.

Every project that received SRF funding must go through environmental compliance, including coordinating with state and federal agencies: Game, Fish and Parks, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

“No adverse impacts are anticipated for this project,” he said.

The estimated cost for the project is $74 million, Honner said.

Maag said he received clarification on the American Rescue Plan Act funds, saying the governor would recommend in her budget address that $600 million of the state ARPA funding be put into the Department of Ag and Natural Resources funding assistance program to assist projects that have been submitted. 

He explained the criteria for funds given out, some of which included a 2.125% interest rate for 30 years for the loan. Rates have to be at or higher than $55 a month, he said.

“What they’re proposing is $3,000 per person in grant funds up to a maximum of 30% of the project cost,” Maag said, which for a $74 million project, comes out to roughly $22 or $23 million.

Another criteria says if the city wants to use its local ARPA funding on the project, “they will match the amount that you put in there, one-to-one,” Maag said.

An $18.54 increase for 5,000 gallons of usage would bring it up to $57.78 and the city could get a $37 million loan, Maag said, adding if rates went up a little more, the city could get a bigger loan.

What the state is proposing right now is $55 a month; “they consider that an affordable rate,” Maag said, adding grant funds could be added to it if the city meets the criteria.

Resolution 21-103

Honner said Resolution 21-103 was a continuation of the previous item.

“The funding sources available through the state of South Dakota provide water for drinking water, and then there’s a separate avenue to get funding for wastewater or sewer type projects,” Honner said, “So this piece of the project … is dealing with the wastewater aspects of the project.”

Honner explained there would be improvements north of the water treatment plant, installing a 12-inch PVC sanitary sewer line, and a 24-inch PVC sanitary sewer line installed from the new water treatment plant south.

“This project is estimated at $4 million,” Honner said.

Crouse said the wastewater falls under the same criteria as the drinking water.

“The project cost doesn’t impact the rates as much; you probably will just have a 100% loan,” she said, but it will increase the rate by $1.73, making it $47.93 a month, “which falls under that $55, which is why we think that you would probably only get loans for this project.”

Resolution 21-104

Witt said the lead water service line replacement project was an in-house design project, so BMU is the consultant.

“This is an effort to remove the remaining lead service lines in the community. Over the course of the last 20 years, BMU has been proactive in getting lead service lines out of the distribution system,” Witt said to the council.

“Historically, BMU has been pretty proactive in getting the lead out,” Witt said in a phone interview with the Register Nov. 22. 

“Back in the early 2000s, we did a project where we worked with the property owners … I think we removed 70-80 (lines) during that event,” he said, adding there are 48 left, that BMU knows of. “I would say in the grand scheme of things that’s pretty good – of over 4,000 customers.”

Coordinating with the customers is key, Witt said in the phone interview.

“The trick on these lead service lines is they’re owned by the customer and they’re on private property,” Witt said, explaining that ownership and responsibility includes the underground pipes. “So, if you don’t have a cooperative property owner … there’s an occasional one that says, ‘I don’t want my yard ripped up’ or ‘I don’t want to lose that tree … or my landscaping or …’”

The city could remove the last 48 known to BMU, and there could still be a handful of holdouts, Witt said.

Without a written temporary easement from the property owner, the city can’t put in the improvements, Witt said.

“It’s a two-party cooperation kind of thing,” he said.

“We’re down to a handful … and we want to remove those as well,” Witt said. “And if we can capitalize on earmarked infrastructure funding for that, so much the better.”

If homeowners find out they still have lead pipes on their property (not in the house), they can contact BMU. 

“We would love to talk to them,” Witt said. “The underground into the house and through the wall into the house, we can help them with, especially with this project coming up.”

It’s important to remove the lead lines. Not only do lead lines “have a negative health aspect to them,” there is increased regulation coming in 2024 with the federal lead and copper rule being updated with more public disclosure and stringent regulations, he said at the council meeting.

There’s been a lot of discussion about earmarking specific funds for removal of lead surfaces, he added.

“Our intent is to remove the remaining 48 known lead service lines left in the distribution system,” Witt said, referring to the map for the location of those lines.

Project cost will be about $920,000; the application funding will round it up to $1 million, Witt said.

Maag said he’s assuming the water treatment plant will raise the rates, “so we’ll be at that $55 a month or higher criteria” making it likely the city could get grant funds for about 30% of the cost with loans covering the remaining 70%. Even with a 100% loan, “it’d only raise your rates 45 cents a month,” he said, adding a grant could lower that to around 20-30 cents.

Contact Jodelle Griener at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.