Tea, SD — 2024. That’s the year that Lewis & Clark Regional Water System officials are saying their system will reach Sheldon if federal funding continues at current levels.
Lewis & Clark Executive Director Troy Larson says workers are gearing up for the next phase of the project, which will start in the spring.
Bids on the next section of pipe, which will actually be put in the opposite way, from Sioux Center, west to the Big Sioux will be opened soon.
Hull and Sioux Center were connected a while back by Lewis & Clark pipe so that Sioux Center could sell water to Hull until Lewis & Clark water arrived in the area. Larson says there are a few more steps to getting water actually flowing toward Sioux Center and Hull.
He says they hope to be able to get water to Sioux Center and Hull by 2022. That’s the first of three timeline dates that they have released recently, says Larson. The other two are that they hope to be serving Sheldon by 2024 and Sibley by 2027.
He says, of course, things could go the other way and they may end up ahead of schedule.
The system has 20 member systems in southeast South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota. They began delivering water to some member systems in 2012. Rock Rapids is the only Iowa system to be connected so far.
Photo caption: Troy Larson speaks to the crowd at the ceremony commemorating Lewis & Clark’s connection to the Rock Rapids Municipal Utilities’ water system in June, 2018.
