by Carrie Moritz, Gazette
The City Council heard from engineers on a recent water study they commissioned at last week's meeting, learning that 4th Street needs water infrastructure improvements as soon as possible.
Matt Martin of Infrastructure Design, the lead engineer, was on hand to present the results and give recommendations to the council.
According to Martin, this study helped to identify water pressure around town, as well as any weaknesses or deficiencies in the city's water infrastructure. It will help the city attain future funding for water and street projects and increase the ability to make a proper timeline for them.
"Over the past month and a half we went through a process of measuring flows at hydrants around the city and studying historical projects," Martin said. "From that information, we were able to create a model... in order to show what pressures should be doing versus what they actually measured at."
Some areas of town, such as Essex and Railroad Avenues, produced higher pressure than expected, and others such as 4th Street, severely under-performed the expected rate.
This led the engineers to recommend replacing cast-iron pipes on 4th Street and Essex Street first, along with finishing the connection on Dows, a project that is already well into the planning stages. The council was aware that 4th Street needed attention, and had planned on construction within the next one to two years.
The third and fourth steps would be replacement on portions of Center and Canyon Avenues, then Main Avenue from 2nd Street to Essex Street.
They also recommended replacing any water mains that weren't PVC or weren't 6 inches or larger in diameter. Several of the systems in Garretson are comprised of cast iron or asbestos-concrete piping (ACP), a material that, while it hasn't shown to have adverse health effects until it starts to degrade, is nearing the end of its useful lifespan.
After the first set of improvements are completed, pressures should increase significantly at hydrants that are currently under-performing, which include three on 4th Street, two on 2nd Street, and any along Highway 11 or in the industrial park.
The second set of improvements include connecting a currently-dead-end line off 5th Street under Split Rock Creek to Main Avenue, and improving the line on 5th from Main to Center Avenues.
Martin did give some bad news about developing to the north of the industrial park, especially without the 5th Street connection.
"Right now, with where the pressure is at, if you wanted to expand in that direction, you're going to be losing quite a lot of pressure if you keep expanding north, since the only existing network goes up 485th (Highway 11)," he said. However, he did note that development to the south will do well regardless, due to the lay of the land.
"Having a master water plan like this will only benefit you," Martin said, after pointing out that these were only suggestions and recommendations.
When asked by councilor Bruce Brown if another water tower was going to be needed soon, Martin responded that he didn't think it would be.
"The only suggestion we have, is from size of pipes around town, increasing those [diameters] will solve most of the pressure issues that arise throughout the city," Martin said.
Maintenance Supervisor Ryan Nussbaum inquired if current and future water usages were figured into this plan. Martin responded they were not. However, after further questioning from councilor Bill Hoskins about water supply, Martin responded that Garretson could double in size and still have more than adequate supplies.
"We're contracted for a little over 400,000 gallons per day and we're using around 130,000 gallons," said Nussbaum, agreeing with Martin. He and Martin noted that the only thing that would impact these numbers would be a heavy-water-use industry moving into town.
The council was happy to hear this news, as they had been worried about ensuring Minnehaha Rural Water would be able to accommodate future growth.
Future council meetings will likely bring more information on this front, especially as planning for 4th Street construction likely will pick up steam over the next year. Councilors will need to decide which projects and timelines to implement with the funding the city has.
