Storage
New Water Treatment Plant

Vision Becomes Reality
Iowa Lakes Regional Water's Osgood Water Treatment Plant
Project Owner:
Iowa Lakes Regional Water
Key Experience:
- RD Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program Funding
- Piloted technology to prove concept
Key Features:
- Direct treatment reverse osmosis water treatment plant
- 750,000 gpd capacity, expandable to 2.25 MGD
- Utilizes shallow alluvial wells located approximately 2.5 miles away from the plant
- Membraned system provides a modular style construction that allows for easy expansion
Iowa Lakes Regional Water (ILRW) provides water service to small communities and nearly 5,000 rural residents in northwest Iowa. The ILRW system encompasses over 200 square miles of service area in all or parts of Dickinson, Emmet, Clay, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Sac and Cherokee Counties in Iowa and Jackson County in Minnesota. Water demands within the ILRW system are diverse, from high residential and tourism demands in the Lake Okoboji and Big Spirit Lake areas in the northern part of the system, to rural residential and large agricultural demands in the remainder of the system.
The Lakes area of the ILRW system has experienced significant growth as it has become a popular tourism location for residents of the upper Midwest. As ILRW developed the Lakes Area, they initially purchased water from a municipal system that treated surface water from Lake Okoboji. This source was an economical option to get the new distribution system started, but recent changes in surface water treatment has led to rising treatment costs and challenges with increasing disinfection byproduct concentrations. ILRW had the goal to provide this area and other rural customers with a higher quality and more economical water source than what they received from their bulk sources. A new treatment plant, the "Osgood" water treatment plant, fulfilled that goal.
The development of the Osgood water source has been a goal of ILRW for decades. As ILRW developed the eastern side of its system, ILRW and DGR Engineering (DGR) worked together to design and install transmission capacity capable of incorporating the Osgood water source, knowing that the new WTP would be needed in the future. The three goals of the project were as follows: to gain independence from purchased water sources, to provide high quality water to existing customers, and to accommodate system growth.
The plant is located along the Des Moines River between Graettinger and Emmetsburg, Iowa. The well field is in a shallow alluvial aquifer approximately 40 feet deep located 2.5 miles east of the water treatment plant and on the eastern side of the Des Moines River. The water treatment plant is located on the western side of the river at a much higher elevation and out of the flood plain of the river. Osgood has a capacity of 750,000 gallons per day and is easily expandable to 2.25 MGD.
The project was developed using the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development’s (RD) Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program, which has been the primary funding source for many ILRW projects. ILRW was able to obtain a loan and grant package from RD that enabled the project to be affordable to existing ILRW customers without having to raise rates.
All of ILRW's existing sources provided softened water, so it was prudent that any process considered incorporate softening. Hardness removal can be achieved through precipitation within conventional processes (lime softening), ion exchange, or non-conventional processes such as electrodialysis and membranes.
During the preliminary engineering report phase, ILRW and DGR evaluated three alternatives to achieve the treated water quality goals:
• Lime softening
• Nanofiltration/reverse osmosis (RO) with pretreatment
• Nanofiltration/reverse osmosis direct treatment
Many alternatives were considered but a direct treatment reverse osmosis water treatment plant was selected due to the lowest initial capital investment and ease of operation. The membraned system also provides a modular style construction that allows for easy expansion as system demands increase.
Reverse osmosis treatment without pretreatment for iron and manganese removal may not always be successful, so the technology was piloted to prove the concept would work. The pilot demonstrated that the water source was a great fit for direct treatment by reverse osmosis. In addition to iron, manganese, and hardness removal, softening membranes have an added benefit of removing other contaminants, such as nitrate, which is always a concern with shallow alluvial aquifers in agricultural settings. Nitrate levels are currently below the EPA's MCL, but test drilling showed elevated levels near the well field.
Not all membrane equipment suppliers are advocates of direct treatment, and so to ensure a successful project, ILRW decided to procure the membrane equipment prior to final design. The equipment procurement process allowed ILRW to make a selection of the equipment manufacturer based on qualifications, construction cost and operating costs, and allowed the equipment manufacturer to join the design team for final design.
The project was bid at the beginning of the pandemic (April 23, 2020) with very competitive bids. Six bids were received on the project with all bids being within 5.5-percent of the low bidder. The project was awarded to John T. Jones Construction Company on June 26, 2020, and substantial completion on the project was granted on January 25, 2022.
While direct treatment with softening membranes is not uncommon in and of itself, this project was unique in that it utilized shallow alluvial wells located approximately 2.5 miles away from the treatment plant. Due to the long raw water pipeline, ILRW and DGR determined that best practices would be to include a means to pig (clean the inner walls of pipes) the raw water pipeline in the final layout.
Based on the pilot water quality results and operating pressures, a hybrid skid was designed which utilized two different styles of membranes in each stage to target different contaminants. The RO skid was also designed for two half-sized trains on one frame to minimize the footprint and reduce overall capital costs. The half-sized trains allowed the plant to operate for a longer duration during low demand and minimize the amount of water wasted during the raw water pipeline flush period between startups/shutdowns. Thirdly, two treatment trains on one skid allowed for redundancy of the treatment equipment.
Treated water quality from the new Osgood WTP is summarized in the following table:
As indicated in the table above, the Osgood WTP produces high quality water for the customers of ILRW, a quality unmatched by most water systems. The water quality produced by Osgood is equivalent to the water quality produced by ILRW’s other water treatment plant, providing customers with consistent water quality regardless of water source. The consistent water quality has significantly reduced taste and odor complaints because the use of other bulk water sources has been significantly reduced. Osgood has reduced ILRW’s dependency on outside water sources, reduced operational costs, and set ILRW up to provide water for future demand growth.


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New Water Distribution System

Big Solutions for a
Small Town Water System
Project Owner:
City of Revere, MN
Key Experience:
- Successfully navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, with four separate construction contracts and 100% remote funding agency coordination
- Secured 86% grant through USDA RD, and DEED SCDP funding
- Replaced water meters with remotely read automatic reading system. High accuracy meters increased revenue and decreased water loss
- Replaced aging ACP pipe with new PVC - reducing public health risk and greatly reducing risk of water main breaks
Key Features:
- Entirely new water distribution system
- All new water meters
- Demolition of existing water tower
- Improved water quality with connection to Red Rock Rural Water System
The City of Revere, MN faced a familiar challenge for rural communities in the upper Midwest. The City’s aging water infrastructure was in need of upgrades. But with a declining population and many residents on a fixed income, there were limited resources to pay for costly repairs and maintenance of their failing water system. The water mains, valves and hydrants in the community needed to be replaced, the water tower needed to be repainted, and there was no treatment or back-up supply for the one and only well in town. In need of assistance, The City reached out to DGR Engineering (DGR) as a trusted water professional in the region to help them find a solution.
Aging Water Infrastructure
The existing water infrastructure was installed in the mid-1900s and included water mains which were constructed using asbestos-cement pipe (ACP), which was approaching the end of its useful life. As ACP ages it becomes brittle, making it difficult to repair. With the presence of asbestos fibers in the pipe material, ACP can be a health risk when the pipe is cut during repairs or when cracked. The City was also experiencing a water loss of over 18%. The town’s mechanical water meters were over 40 years old and were suspected to be contributing to the system’s water loss, in the form of unmetered water.
The City’s water tower was over 70 years old with a coating system that was in poor condition and showed visible signs of pitting in the steel. The most recent water tower inspection recommended a complete blast and re-coating of the tower, which would require special consideration for lead paint removal and other improvements to bring the structure into compliance with OSHA safety standards.

Alternative Water Supply
The City’s water supply consisted of a single production well drilled in 1982 at a depth of approximately 200 feet. Although the well was still in good operating condition, there was no back-up well and no standby generation to ensure continuous water supply in the event of a power outage or failure/maintenance of the existing well. The Minnesota Department of Health imposed a requirement on the City to obtain a backup water source, either by drilling a second well or connecting to a regional water system.
The City’s water source was untreated except for chlorine injection for disinfection. The water quality of the existing well met all state and federal primary drinking water standards, but there were several contaminants that exceeded the non-mandatory secondary drinking water standards. High concentrations of iron, sulfates and total dissolved solids created taste, color and odor concerns within the community. The City needed a solution that not only provided a redundant water supply, but also improved water quality.
Funding Assistance
The City wanted an engineering study that would identify necessary water system improvements and establish a budget for financing those improvements. DGR assisted the City in securing a Special Evaluation Assistance for Rural Communities and Households (SEARCH) grant through USDA Rural Development to fund 100% of the cost of a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) and Environmental Assessment (EA). The report recommended full replacement of the water distribution system, new water meters with an automated meter reading (AMR) system, demolition of the water tower, abandonment of the existing well and chemical feed building, and a water service connection to the regional rural water system, Red Rock Rural Water System.
With an estimated price tag of over $1.1 million, and a small population, The City needed a comprehensive solution to help make the water system improvements affordable for its residents. The City's median household income made it eligible to receive a grant through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s (DEED) Small Cities Development Program (SCDP) for public facility improvements.
The SCDP public facility grant was packaged with financing through Rural Development’s Water and Environmental Program that included additional grant funding and a low interest loan. The City’s final funding package included over 86% grant, keeping the project costs affordable for the town’s residents.
Project Design and Construction
With funding secured for the project, The City asked DGR to proceed with final design of the improvements recommended in the PER. Because of the unique nature of each type of work, the final design entailed separate construction contracts for the water distribution system replacement, water metering system replacement, water tower demolition and the connection to the Red Rock Rural Water System.
The water distribution contract was bid in February of 2020. By May of 2020, the water distribution contractor started construction. By the end of the year, all water main and services had been replaced, new water meters had been installed and the system was connected to Red Rock’s system. Once the connection was made to Red Rock, Revere residents said their final goodbyes to the City’s 73-year-old water tower.
Today, The City’s residents enjoy high quality water that comes to them in a new and reliable distribution system. City staff rest comfortably knowing the risk of water main breaks during cold winter nights is now greatly reduced, and customers are being accurately billed for usage. Thanks to a generous funding package, it was all done with a reasonable impact to user rates that was well received by the City’s residents.
In the end, the City of Revere completed a project that met their objectives, budget, and schedule. DGR staff is proud to have played a key role in this successful project.

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Treatment Plant & Well Exploration

Water System Improvements
add capacity on existing site
Osceola County Rural Water System Constructs
Treatment Plant and Adds Ground Storage Reservoir
Project Owner:
Osceola County Rural Water System
Key Experience:
- Maintaining the use of existing facilities during the construction of the new water treatment plant on the same site
- Surface resistivity aquifer testing to efficiently pinpoint high capacity wells
Key Features:
- 2,400 gpm water treatment plant for iron and manganese removal
- 1 million-gallon glass-fused steel ground storage reservoir
- 750 kW standby generator
Osceola County Rural Water System (OCRWS) provides service to 3,200 customers in five counties of Northwest Iowa. OCRWS continues to see increasing water demands from ag and confinement livestock facilities, industrial users and municipalities. OCRWS maintains two water treatment plants that serve the North Phase and South Phase of the rural water system. During 2017, OCRWS experienced water demands that exceeded their South Phase Water Treatment Plant (WTP) capacity, which confirmed the need to move forward with expansion of the facility.
The existing South Phase WTP was constructed in the early 1980’s, with a self-contained aeration/detention/filtration system called an Aerelator®. The existing treatment equipment had reached the end of its useful life, and there was no way to rehab the existing equipment while maintaining treatment for the South Phase. Additionally, the existing WTP capacity was unable to meet OCRWS’s growing water demands, so OCRWS decided to construct a new South Phase WTP.
DGR Engineering (DGR) worked closely with OCRWS to design a new WTP to target iron and manganese removal from shallow groundwater source near the site. The new WTP was designed on the existing WTP site to minimize the project footprint and avoid additional land purchase. With the WTP location being highly visible just off IA Hwy. 10, OCRWS and DGR worked together to develop a design that not only met their water quality and capacity needs, but was also aesthetically pleasing. The new treatment process includes aeration, detention, and filtration using a gravity filter arrangement, and will increase OCRWS’s treatment capacity from 750 gpm to 2,400 gpm.


OCRWS also needed additional source water capacity to utilize the treatment capacity of the new WTP. DGR used a surface resistivity testing program to generate multiple snapshots of the aquifer depth and production capacity. Resistivity testing uses a line of electrical probes to quickly estimate soil characteristics, without the time and expense of test drilling. The testing provides a series of graphs like the one shown below. It allowed OCRWS to gather aquifer information on hundreds of acres of potential well sites with 3 days of field work and quickly identify the highest probability areas for high capacity wells. The results of the graphs were verified with test drilling, and two new well sites were identified in the thickest and most productive areas of the aquifer.
Increasing demands at the new WTP made additional on-site storage necessary. A 1 million-gallon glass-fused steel ground storage reservoir was constructed to accommodate these needs. The additional finished water storage on-site will also give OCRWS flexibility in how they choose to operate the facility.
The total construction cost of the new WTP project was $7.8 million, which was financed using a combination of Iowa State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan and private funding. The SRF funding package included a forgivable SRF loan for standby power generation. DGR also helped OCRWS navigate SRF’s American Iron and Steel requirements. The new improvements to South Phase water source will allow OCRWS to meet current and future water demands while providing their customers with reliable, high quality water.

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Pump Station & Storage Reservoirs

Water Source Resiliency
For Southwest Minnesota
Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water System
Project Owner:
Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water System
Key Experience:
- Designed pump station for versatility with three initial discharge headers, one future discharge header, and two fill directions for the reservoirs
- Reconfigured distribution system including controls of existing facilities to accommodate replacement water source
Key Features:
- 21-mile, 14-inch diameter PVC pipeline
- Two 400,000-gallon glass-fused-to-steel ground storage reservoirs
- 1,620 gpm pump station
- New connection to serve the City of Edgerton
Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water System (LPRW) serves approximately 4,500 customers, including 32 towns as bulk customers, in ten southwest Minnesota counties. Traditionally, LPRW treated water from their Holland water source using a reverse osmosis (RO) treatment process to remove nitrate in parallel with pressure filters for iron and manganese removal. When the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency notified LPRW that their RO discharge permit would be discontinued, LPRW needed to secure a replacement treatment process or replacement water source.
To fill this need, LPRW and DGR Engineering (DGR) undertook the Edgerton Pump Station, Reservoirs, and Pipeline project. The improvements allowed LPRW to replace the source capacity lost at the Holland water source with their water allocation from Lewis & Clark Regional Water System. LPRW is one of the founding members of Lewis & Clark, and LPRW’s ability to adapt to an alternative water source is a credit to the organization’s foresight and resiliency.
DGR tackled the unique challenge of fundamentally changing operations for the south half of LPRW’s system. LPRW’s original Edgerton Pump Station received water from the Holland WTP and pumped it east to serve customers and to fill the Chandler Elevated Tank. A new Edgerton Pump Station was designed to handle all of the same demands as the original Edgerton Pump Station and to pump water back toward the Holland WTP to serve territory previously upstream of the original Edgerton Pump Station.
Lewis & Clark has a metering facility for Rock County Rural Water District at the City of Magnolia, MN and agreed to sell water to LPRW from that facility. DGR designed 21 miles of 14-inch diameter PVC pipeline to deliver water from Lewis & Clark’s meter station to the new Edgerton Pump Station. The pipeline design includes provisions for a future booster station, which will be needed if LPRW purchases more water from Lewis & Clark in the future.
During preliminary planning, the City of Edgerton requested a bulk water service connection from LPRW. The pipeline was intentionally routed to pass near the city’s well building for a service connection to the city. A related project for a meter/pump station for the city service is currently under construction.
The pipeline delivers water to two 400,000-gallon, glass-fused-to-steel ground storage reservoirs at the Edgerton Pump Station site. The reservoirs provide flow equalization and improve pump station operability and reliability. Two reservoirs allow for redundancy in case one reservoir is out of service for maintenance or repairs.
The new Edgerton pump station consists of seven vertical multistage pumps which serve three separate discharge headers, and the station includes provisions for increasing the capacity in the future. Special consideration was given to the pipe and valve configuration so pumps can be used for multiple headers for redundancy. The station also is able to fill the reservoirs from the Holland WTP in case of source interruption from Lewis & Clark.
DGR worked closely with LPRW to incorporate preferences for station layout, pump size selection, and station capability options. DGR designed the control system and worked with multiple SCADA providers to coordinate control integration for the new facility and for communications with other water systems.
Total construction cost of the pump station, reservoirs, and pipeline project was $5.1 million, which was financed using a combination of USDA Rural Development loan and Minnesota Public Facilities Authority Point Source Implementation Grant (PSIG) funding. DGR worked with LPRW to secure funding and administer state prevailing wage requirements dictated by the PSIG funding. The new Edgerton Pump Station will allow LPRW to meet current and future water demands and provide their customers with reliable, high quality water.



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New Water Treatment Plant delivers higher quality and more economical water.
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The City’s residents enjoy high quality water that comes to them in a new and reliable distribution system.
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Water System Expansion

Water system expansion project
adds customers and improves system
Kingbrook Rural Water, Inc. Implements Long-Range Plan by
Improving System Performance and Serving New Customers
Project Owner:
Kingbrook Rural Water, Inc.
Key Experience:
- Completion of a long-range plan spanning several decades and multiple projects to interconnect water sources
- Optimized treatment plant performance by moving chemical injection points and adding finished water storage
- Large rural water pipeline project that extends service to new members and improves system capacity
Key Features:
- USDA Rural Development funding, including grant and low-interest loan, saving client over $4 million in interest payments
- 215 miles of pipe 1½” to 16” in diameter extending service to 260 new customers
- New 630,000-gallon bolted steel storage tank
Kingbrook Rural Water, Inc. is a regional water provider in eastern South Dakota, serving approximately 4,950 residential, livestock, and commercial users in more than 11 counties. They serve customers from three different water treatment plants located approximately 50 miles from each other. The treatment plants are located in rural areas near the small towns of Bruce, De Smet and Chester, SD. The original system construction happened in the late 70’s and early 80’s. All three treatment plants were expanded in the 90’s and early 2000’s to meet their growing needs.
In the mid-2000’s, DGR Engineering (DGR) and Kingbrook began developing a long-range plan to interconnect their three treatment plants with large diameter transmission mains. The goal of the plan was to provide another level of backup at each treatment plant in case of an emergency. This emergency planning was in addition to the typical approach for systems to have standby generation, backup pumps, etc. Another goal of the plan was to provide operational flexibility by having two sources that could serve any of their subsystems. Each year, an annual planning event is held to review system operations, new growth trends, and changes in existing customer demands. The plan is updated and modified to meet the current and future needs of the system.
Approximately every four to five years, these plans are combined into a project that not only improves the system for existing customers, but also extends rural water service to new customers. Conducting systematic expansion projects results in regular improvement of the system. It also allows the utility to make the most efficient investments in their system by taking advantage of low-interest loans, grants, and economies of scale when bidding out multiple improvements and new connections as one large project. In the past 15 years, Kingbrook has installed about 50 miles of transmission mains between their treatment plants, but still needed about 25 miles between Bruce and De Smet to complete the long-range planning goal of connecting their water treatment plants.




Kingbrook began planning their current expansion project in 2015. Tremendous demand for new service connections made this expansion project the largest expansion project ever undertaken by Kingbrook. Much of the additional water demand was located within the De Smet plant service area that couldn’t be met with the existing system’s transmission capacity. Previous projects had increased elevated storage capability in the De Smet plant service area and connected with the Chester plant. But more capacity was needed to serve the new customers.
Our Approach
DGR began by helping Kingbrook optimize the De Smet treatment plant. Highly variable iron concentrations from their north well field made chemical dosing problematic. Kingbrook optimized the treatment efficiency of the plant by changing oxidants and moving the chemical dosing locations. These changes extended the filter runtime, reduced the overall chemical requirements of the plant, and increased production capacity.
Next, the existing storage capacity at the De Smet treatment plant only had about three and a half hours of peak demand storage, which made plant operation difficult. Kingbrook selected a two-phase process to build one 630,000-gallon tank now, which will increase on-site storage to about eight hours, and build a second tank as part of a future project, when demand increases.
Finally, DGR designed pipeline that would serve the new customers and complete the interconnection to Kingbrook’s third water source near Bruce. When complete, this project will add approximately 190 miles of pipe for system improvements and new services, as well as approximately 25 miles of 12, 14, and
16-inch diameter pipeline to interconnect the Bruce plant with
the De Smet plant.
The project is was finished in the summer of 2019. This project
not only meets the needs of new customers who signed up on
this expansion project, but it also achieved a major milestone
of Kingbrook’s long-range planning – the interconnection of
their water sources to improve system reliability and flexibility
of operations.
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New Water Treatment Plant delivers higher quality and more economical water.
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The City’s residents enjoy high quality water that comes to them in a new and reliable distribution system.
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