Rapid City hears 100‑year Water Utility System Master Plan; consultants say current water rights adequate through 2125

Morgan Falcone, a civil engineer with the City of Rapid City and the project manager for the Water Utility System Master Plan, and Sean Labonde, project manager for consultant Black & Veatch, presented the plan to the Legal and Finance Committee on April 2, 2025.

The consultants said the plan updates population and spatial growth forecasts, produces average‑ and maximum‑day demand projections, performs an asset‑condition assessment for buried pipelines and facilities, and presents a 100‑year capital improvement program (CIP) with unconstrained and constrained funding scenarios. The presentation and subsequent Q&A emphasized groundwater resiliency, storage rights and the need for staged conservation measures and reuse options.

Why it matters: the master plan sets the city’s long‑range capital priorities for water supply, treatment and distribution. It changes the size and timing of major facilities compared with the 2008 study, reduces some projected peak‑day demand estimates, and assigns replacement priorities for more than 34,000 pipeline segments — findings that affect spending, permitting and developer requirements for decades.

Key findings and figures presented

- Current (2025) average‑day production: about 11.5 million gallons per day (MGD), presented by the consultant as the baseline. - Forecasts: the master plan uses updated city planning data and produced service‑area scenarios for 2025, 2045 and a 100‑year horizon (2125). The plan’s long‑range population baseline was described as roughly 155,000 people by 2125, approximately double today’s population according to the consultant’s slides. - Peak demand revisions: the consultant contrasted the 2008…