Grand Forks council hears multi‑phase wastewater plant upgrade that will add 5 million GPD capacity

City of Grand Forks officials on Tuesday updated the City Council on a two‑phase renovation and expansion of the municipal wastewater treatment plant that will add 5,000,000 gallons per day of treatment capacity and is designed to allow a future expansion of another 7.5 MGD.

The update, presented by Melanie Parvey and contractors from PKG, said phase 1 — upgrades to the existing plant — is about 99% complete and costing about $11,400,000 including engineering. "Presently, the job that phase 1 project is about 99% complete. We're actually working on punch list items right now and they're soon to be completed," PKG representative Darren Figstead told the council.

Why it matters: City staff said the work replaces equipment that had reached end of useful life and improves operational safety and reliability. The full two‑phase plan was approved by the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality as a planning document, city staff said.

Phase 1 work described to the council included a new overhead bridge crane, new pumps and flow control gates, replacement of degraded sludge piping and valves, new staircases and handrails for safer access, and a new screw conveyor in the headworks building to move grit into dumpsters. Parvey said electrical, mechanical, lighting, ventilation and controls work were significant parts of this phase. PKG said contractor and owner contingency allowances initially at $250,000 each have largely been consumed by discovered coating repairs and added gate actuators and other unforeseen items.

Contractor PKG described phase 2 as the new parallel treatment system that will include a fine screen building, secondary treatment and a membrane system. PKG representative Madison Albright told the council phase 2 has an estimated project value of roughly $86,000,000 and was billed at about 42% complete at the time of the presentation. "To date, we have completed excavation of around 30,000 cubic yards of site material... We've spun 350 helical piers to an average depth of around 115 feet... and we've poured about 7,000 cubic yards of concrete," Albright said.

PKG also highlighted safety statistics, reporting roughly 47,000 man hours on the project to date with no lost‑time incidents. The contractor invited council members to schedule plant tours in a few months.

City staff said planning allows the facility to accommodate future residential and industrial growth and that the parallel system was designed so an additional 7.5 MGD expansion could be added later. Parvey and council members noted the combined wastewater and water infrastructure work will put the city in position to support growth for decades.

Estimated schedule and budget: Parvey said phase 1 is expected to be complete by March 2025; phase 2 completion was projected for late 2026. PKG presented an overall phase 2 project cost estimate at roughly $86 million and noted the project is on track against that estimate at the time of the update.

Questions from council covered operations and long‑term benefits; presenters said many upgrades were prompted by equipment reaching the end of usable life and the new systems were intended to reduce future operating risks.

The council did not take action Tuesday on the wastewater project; the presentation served as an informational update.