Grand Forks water system needs $15M in upgrades

Grand Forks will end up spending around $15 million to repair and upgrade its water storage system.

A consultant’s plan presented to council on Monday (Sept. 9) calls for replacing the east side reservoir near Valley Heights and also building a second smaller 1,500 cubic meter (330,000 gallon) reservoir in the west end.

Sean Annan with ISL Engineering told council the west end storage is needed for a couple of reasons.

“There are fire flow deficiencies on the west side of the system…so we have fire flow deficiencies that are existing and we’re going to be future development there as well so that sort of compounds the concern for wanting to improve fire flows on the west side,” Annan said.

Annan says it’s too costly to repair the main reservoir given its age and current condition.

“There’s historical documentation that shows that the floor is concrete and that cracks have been observed in it. But we are unable to know the extent of those cracks, if they’ve gotten worse (and) where they’re at. There’s also a concern, that sunken membrane is providing a form of leak protection to the reservoir,” he said.

The city already has a nearly $4 million grant to perform the replacement of the 4,000 cubic meter (880,000 gallon) east zone reservoir.

Also included is a plan to blend water from all municipal wells, allowing for a couple of wells that have been offline due to contamination to come back online.

In theory, the blending would dilute any contamination to acceptable levels while also putting less stress on the existing wells.

Council will discuss how to pay for all of it at budget time.