by By Erik Kaufman, Mitchell Republic, January 09, 2025 LAKE ANDES, S.D. — A water pipeline project that will benefit Mitchell and Davison County recently awarded construction contracts for the project, setting up a start date for construction in spring of 2025.
The Connecting Neighbors Regional Waterline Project, an approximately $105 million water pipeline effort, will allow the Randall Community Water District to supply clean, reliable water to two existing customers as well as the city of Mitchell, which would take the form of a secondary Scott Pick, general manager for the Randall Community Water District, said the contracts signal the start of an exciting time for the district and its partners in South Dakota.
“I think it’s a monumental step,” Pick told the Mitchell Republic.
The district awarded Hausmann Construction-General Excavating Joint Venture, in collaboration with Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc., the design-build services contract for the construction of a high-capacity water transmission line. In addition, the district awarded the construction risk contract to complete improvements at the Platte Treatment facility.
ID8 Architecture will provide architectural design and lead a team of professional service providers for the treatment plant building addition.
The group will work together to build an approximately 72-mile high capacity water transmission pipeline that will carry water from the Missouri River to southeastern South Dakota, including the Davison Rural Water System, the Aurora-Brule Rural Water System and the city of Mitchell, which will utilize the pipeline as a secondary water source. The city is also currently served by B-Y Water.
The project will also include treatment plant upgrades, associated water storage, pumping and infrastructure components, Pick said.
The work will begin at the district’s Platte Treatment Plant with upgrades to the treatment facility and will then continue with the new water line construction from the Platte Tank Farm southwest of Platte and make its way east and north to an existing storage site south of Stickney. The project will then continue the new pipeline from the Stickney storage site east and north to a service connection site near Mitchell.
All told, the changes should improve services throughout Davison County and beyond.
“We provide Davison County with 100% of their water needs, and they’re going to get additional capacity. That pipeline will have the capacity for their growth needs as well as the city of Mitchell,” Pick said. “In addition to that, the Aurora Brule Rural Water System will get capacity in that, too.”
Work is expected to take approximately three years to complete.
The water line should be a considerable upgrade for all involved parties, Pick said, but also impactful is the relatively short timeframe it’s expected to take to finish the project. Pick said the fact they are talking about years for completion instead of decades is impressive.
“When you think about the large project and the magnitude and scope of years that it’s taken to do some of those, our time frame from start to completion is, in my opinion, transformational, because we’re going to have the ability to have that pipeline done within three years, not 30,” Pick said. “When you put it in that perspective, I’m very happy with our board of directors and our development team saying – 'Hey, this can be done if you all get together and you use the team vision and approve it in a much more diligent, quicker fashion.'”
When construction begins, it will indicate the start of a project that has been on the mind of Mitchell city leaders for several years. The Mitchell City Council in February 2024 approved an agreement with the Randall Community Water District that could provide up to 5 million gallons of water a day to Mitchell. The city had been exceeding its maximum daily capacity of 2.6 million gallons already provided by B-Y Water on a regular basis.
Discussions on the project date back further than that, however, and Bob Everson, former mayor of Mitchell who had a central leadership role in making the project a reality, said city officials have been looking into the water supply issue since around 2019. An additional water supply should make the community even more attractive to potential residents and businesses, especially those such as processing plants that may require a high rate of water.
“It’s awesome. It will be a good thing for Mitchell,” Everson told the Mitchell Republic. “Our water needs should be covered now for well into the future of Mitchell. That’s a good thing, because there are a lot of communities that are not sitting well for water. Water is kind of becoming a commodity, so we’re sitting now where Mitchell should be able to do some additional development and grow based on what we’ve got for water now.”
The Randall Community Water District is currently finalizing landowner negotiations and easement agreements. Engineering design and construction will follow that process, Pick said. He said the construction process will involve more trenching or plowing as opposed to methods that cause more ground disturbance, something district officials and landowners both want to avoid.
The overall cost of the project comes in at around $105 million, with about $21.2 million coming from the American Rescue Plan Act, which are grant funds from the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources for the project. The remainder will be covered through a State Revolving Fund Programming loan over 30 years at 1.85%, Pick said.
Everson said it’s satisfying to see the project reach this stage, and he will be watching closely to see how endeavor pans out.
“It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get everything up and going to get us water, and we’ll see how we can develop and grow as a city and community with this addition to our repertoire and see if we can actually bring in some more businesses that need a little more water,” Everson said. “I look forward to the city growing.”
The timing, funding and construction methods of the new pipeline will hopefully serve as an example to other entities of how a sizable infrastructure project can go from vision to completion in a relatively short time, Pick said.
A reliable supply of clean water is vital for any community or region, and Pick said the Randall Community Water District is hopefully leading by example when it comes to its large-scale projects.
“Hopefully when it’s all said and done with our team, which includes the state of South Dakota and the (state) department of agriculture and natural resources, we create a platform, or almost a template, that this should be a model you would consider,” Pick said
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