Rock Rapids, Iowa — The Rock Rapids municipal water supply will be hooked up to the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System and will begin receiving water this summer. That according to Rock Rapids Municipal Utilities Manager Jim Hoye.
The Lewis & Clark Regional Water System has been in the works for 27 years, since 1990, and ground was broken in 2003. While all the member communities have paid their fair share, the promised federal government funding has been slow to come in.
When Lewis & Clark officials list their connected communities, Rock Rapids has been listed since their connection went live at the Grand Falls Casino. Rock Rapids gets the water from the Lewis & Clark main near the casino and sells it to Lyon & Sioux Rural Water, who then sell it to the casino. But the businesses, industries, and citizens of Rock Rapids are not yet receiving water from Lewis & Clark.
Hoye says since the community joined late, Rock Rapids was not eligible to have pipe coming directly to the town, and had to take delivery of the water from points along the main line. In addition to the casino connection, the other connection is north of Lester on the state line. Hoye says years ago, their customer, Lyon & Sioux Rural Water was making a connection between a water tower six miles west of Rock Rapids and the city of Lester, so Rock Rapids paid to have that line upgraded so they could also use it for the Lewis & Clark connection.
After Rock Rapids Municipal Utilities received a $500,000 Emergency Community Water Assistance Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the project last year, workers are now installing six miles of 10-inch plastic pipe from Rock Rapids’ water treatment plant north of town to the Lyon & Sioux tower. The estimate for the cost of the work is $951,000.
Hoye says the water will help the community to have enough water.
He says that they were fortunate that the utility boards throughout the years had the foresight to make these decisions. He says the extra capacity will also help with economic development.
Hoye says the cost of receiving the water will go down as more member communities are connected. He says Rock Rapids customers may notice a temporary water price increase due to the cost of the construction but the base price of water should stay the same.
According to Hoye, a formal announcement of the final connection between the Lewis & Clark wells and the Rock Rapids water supply will be in late summer or early fall of this year.
