Part of Tuesday night’s city council meeting was a victory lap of sorts for Ely city officials.
They were understandingly jubilant in the wake of action over the weekend in St. Paul, where legislators passed a bonding bill that included $3.9 million for the city’s drinking water supply intake and water main replacement project.
State approval comes on top of a $2 million federal award secured earlier in the year, and provides more than half of the needed funding for a roughly $9 million project - one that had been identified as a top priority by the city of Ely.
“It’s a big deal,” Mayor Heidi Omerza said of the development.
City officials say replacing the infrastructure is needed to ensure the reliability of water supply to the city of Ely not only for domestic use, but fire protection as well.
Harold Langowski, the city’s clerk-treasurer and operations director, noted that Ely officials worked on several fronts to make the project happen.
“It takes a good team, and we have a good team with city staff, the utilities commission, the council and the consultants that worked with us on this,” he said.
“It took the council having it as a priority project with the assistance with our lobbyists, our engineers, our economic developer telling our story as we presented to the Senate and House bonding committees. It shows that when we are committed to our priorities, we do get results.”
The city’s water pump house, intake structure and intake line were originally constructed in 1932, nearly a century ago, and the line runs about 25,000 linear feet from Burntside Lake to the city’s water plant located in the northwest corner of the city.
Multiple leaks have occurred along the water line due to movement during the winter months because of the lack of insulation and minimal depth at which the line was buried.
When the line leaks, the city must respond as an emergency situation given it’s the only source of water, using anywhere from 600,000 to a million gallons a day.
Langowski and other city officials said the aging infrastructure needed replacement, and found allies in both State Rep. Roger Skraba (R-Ely) and State Sen. Grant Hauschild (D-Hermantown).
The lawmakers secured the state money, which will be leveraged by the $2 million federal allocation gained with the aid of U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R), U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D) and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D).
Langowski hailed the bipartisan effort, particularly at an otherwise divided Minnesota Legislature.
“If you look at the bonding bill and the overall support, I think they understand, as a whole, the importance of infrastructure,” said Langowski. “At a time when there’s a lot of dissent, when it came to public infrastructure, there was almost unanimous support.”
The state and federal funds will be augmented by a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant and $190,000 from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.
The final piece of the funding puzzle is $2.5 million in low-interest loans.
“We were able to leverage the (federal funds) and low interest loan with bonding money and that was big, and we did make small increases in water rates to cover the debt service anticipated with the loan,” said Langowski.
Plans call for the city to break ground on the project this summer and for work to be done in the fall and winter.
“My hope is everything from Ferrellgas to Central Avenue will be replaced, and then starting at the Tek Road all the way to Burntside Lake,” said Langowski. “That’s about 25,000 feet of water main plus about 3,000 feet on Sheridan Street.”
