Work planned to begin in December on regional water treatment plant

A project that will supply water to Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation and people off the reservation in seven counties in north-central Montana is taking a major step forward.

The Chippewa Cree Tribal Business Committee awarded Sletten Construction a $35.8 million contract to build the plant at Tiber Dam south of Chester that will treat water for the Rocky Boy’s/North Central Montana Regional Water System.

“This is a pretty impressive project,” Sletten Construction Project Manager Kyle Blunn said. “It’s not very often that you build a ground up water plant, let alone one that’s going to supply water to, obviously the tribe, but also to the north-central Montana water system.”

The water system stems from the Chippewa Cree Tribe’s water compact with the state and federal government.

The system will provide water to the reservation and to off-reservation residents in Chouteau, Hill, Liberty, Pondera, Teton, Glacier and Toole counties including Havre, the North Havre Water District, Hill County Water District and Chester.

Blunn said that construction for the water treatment plant is expected to start at the beginning of next year. The plant will be an 11-million-gallons-a-day facility and is expected to be completed by June 2022.

“It’s a pretty good size for anything that you’re going to see brand new, especially in the state of Montana,” he said.

“There are going to be a lot of people positively affected by this project,” he added.

Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said the progress of the project is a large benefit to Havre and the surrounding areas.

“It’s going to be a win-win for everybody once it gets here and once it gets online, it will be a good thing,” he said.

He added that the project is moving in the right direction, but it still has a long way to go. The water system still needs to be hooked up to Box Elder and to parts of Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, before it is brought to Havre. He said that after Havre is hooked up, the city is required to take a third of the water produced from the system, this will allow more areas around Havre to have the capability to be supplied with water, such as west of town, Old Post Road and Fort Assiniboine.

“As it moves forward and as the city gets hooked up to the system, it will be a pretty positive thing for us,” Peterson said. “We’ll have two sources of water that we will be able to work with to make sure that the residents of Havre have water.”

Parts of the distribution system, such as a line connecting the North Havre Water District to the Havre Water Treatment Plant, have been completed to address water quality issues in parts of the system. When the core and non-core distribution line are completed, those districts will be served by the regional water treatment plant.

Part of the agreement, in compliance with the Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance, 80 percent of the workforce to build a water treatment plant will be enrolled members of the Chippewa Cree Tribe, Blunn said.

A press release from Chippewa Cree Construction Corporation said that in 2002, the Rocky Boy’s/North Central Montana Regional Water System Act was authorized by the U.S. Congress under the water compact, ratified by the state in 1997, and Congress in 1999, to provide water to the reservation. The project was expanded to provide water to residents of Chouteau, Hill, Liberty, Pondera, Teton, Glacier and Toole counties

“The project stakeholders have been working diligently to implement the goals of the project, which is now moving into the next major phase of the project, the Water Treatment Plant,” it added.

The Chippewa Cree Construction Corporation have been working on the planning, design and construction of the core system portion of the project by the Chippewa Cree Tribe of Rocky Boy’s Reservation, the release said.

In 2016, the tribe constructed a water pump facility, also located by Tiber Dam.

The Water Treatment Plant will be located near that facility.

Blunn said that the new facility will not be at the same location as the pump station, but on a neighboring sight slightly closer to the dam.

The tribe’s press release said, based on Sletten’s preliminary construction schedule, earthwork will begin in early December. Crews will start in the beginning of 2020 drilling piers which will anchor the treatment plant’s foundation. It will then take a year-and-a-half to finish the foundation and interior process work before the walls are erected in the fall of 2021. The final completion date for the project is set for June 1, 2022, it added.

After phase 1 is completed the remaining 33 miles of core pipeline and then the non-core system must be installed, which will deliver water to different communities, it said.

“If federal funding remains consistent, the project may have enough funding to implement the remaining components of pipelines, pump stations and appurtenances to have water flowing within a five-year window,” it said, adding that with the efforts of the members of Montana’s congressional delgation, the tribe and its construction company, the off-reservation water authority, the state government and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, “fresh drinking water is on the horizon.”

Blunn said people can always expect unforeseen setbacks with any project, but because of Sletten’s experience, he expects the project to generally go very smoothly.