Havre infrastructure projects outlined

The Havre area may see quite a few infrastructure projects coming its way in the next few years, in part because of recent federal legislation and programs meant to shore up the U.S. infrastructure, a subject of disscussion at the city’s most recent town hall.

Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson said in the city’s latest town hall last month that his department has been in contact with three engineering firms they’re hoping to have work on a number of local projects, including one that will pave the way for Havre to improve its street conditions.

Peterson said one of these firms, Great West Engineering, is working on a preliminary engineering report for the city’s water distribution system, which will help Havre get its hands on some of the competitive grant funds made available through the American Rescue Plan Act.

He said a big part of this project will involve replacing the city’s remaining lead service lines, which he said still serve 185 households in the city, mostly the older parts, including replacing the lines from the main to the house.

The Environmental Protection Agency has mandated that these lead lines, many of which he said date back to the 1930s, must be replaced by 2026 and while local ordinances say that home owners are responsible for the lines that lead directly to their homes, federal law overrides those ordinances and puts the responsibility on the city instead, in this case.

Peterson said the city has already put in for a competitive grant and he’s hoping to get word back on its status soon.

The whole project, he said, has a price tag of about $4.4 million, almost $1 million of which would come in the form of Minimum Allocation Grant funds. He said they’ve put in for $2 million grant with a $1.4 million match from the city which will cover the rest.

This project, once its done, will allow the city to start working repaving and repairing the streets, he said.

In a meeting between U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and city and county officials in February, Peterson said without addressing the infrastructure under the roads it’s very difficult to make the repairs and improvements that he knows everyone wants.

St. Mary System

At the town hall last month Peterson praised Tester for his efforts at getting the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed, which provided $100 million to the St. Mary Rehabilitation Project.

The St. Mary Diversion helps supply water to local irrigators, and the system it’s part of has been in need of repairs for decades and the price tag for the whole project now sits between $200 million and $300 million.

Peterson, a member of the St. Mary Rehabilitation Working Group, said the $100 million the project received through the infrastructure bill won’t cover everything, but it’s a great start.

“This is one of those things where, you get a little bit of funding to get started, it gets easier to find a little bit more,” he said.

He said typically area irrigators are responsible for the majority of the system’s maintenance costs, but they just don’t have the money to cover the massive amount of work the project needs, and lawmakers are trying to find a way to shift the costs there as well to make it more reasonable.

Waste water plant, water tank repairs and ongoing projects

Peterson also talked about upcoming repairs to the city’s waste water plant which Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services did upgrades to in 2017, a $12 million project that he said was money well-spent, but, like all projects, did not address every issue the facility had.

He said some parts of the plant are still in need of repair and, while public works is keeping things running as best they can, more permanent fixes will be needed, and he’s hoping those will be coming next spring or summer.

He said the firm is also working on a mixing zone study for the plant as well, examining the effects of the facility discharging water into the river.

He said all the firms the city is working with on these projects, including AE2S, Great West Engineering and Siemens Engineering, have all done great work in the area before.

Peterson also talked about repairs public works is making to the water tank northwest of Highland Park. He said the tank is still usable, but one of its columns had been damage, he suspects by ice, and they’re hesitant to use it during the winter.

He said said they were hoping to get that repaired this spring, but circumstances have forced them to push the project back until after the irrigation season.

Recent progress on the North Central Regional Water System, was another subject Peterson touched on, saying a water filtration system is being built at Tiber Reservoir which will supply water to areas like Rocky Boy, Chester and Havre.

He said the system, which is currently in design phases, could supply more than 6 million gallons a day if the city chose to use that much, which will be a huge boon to the area.

Peterson said there’s a lot of work to do around the city and Public Works can do it, but, for much of it, the city doesn’t have the money just yet, and with all the federal programs out there contractors are likely to become hard to come by soon.

He said the area has some great local contractors but they’ll probably have a lot on their plate so the department is looking to see if they can use funds from these federal programs to buy the equipment necessary to do some of these projects themselves.

That project recently received a boost from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, with Tester, who helped negotiate that bill and included money for the St. Mary Diversion and the regional water system, announcing March 31 that $57.5 million was allocated to pay for work on the treatment plant at Tiber Reservoir and pipeline segments, with the total in the bill for that project at $194 million.