Robbinsdale Chooses Water Treatment Plant Site
After more than a year of planning, Robbinsdale is getting a new water treatment plant. It will replace three plants the city is using now. The city council picked the south side of Lee Park for the location.
“The advantage of bringing everything together into one site means we don’t have to service three separate sites,” said Richard McCoy, Robbinsdale’s public works director and city engineer. “All of the operations will be in one location.”
The Lee Park site is an empty lawn right now. But when the plant is built, the area will still be usable as part of the park.
The city says there won’t be any unpleasant smells from this plant. That’s because it’s not a sewage treatment plant. It will pull water from wells and prepare it for drinking. The city added one feature at the request of residents. The new plant will soften the water as well as treating it. That will help reduce salt from home water softeners getting into area waterways.
“The feasibility report did not recommend to do water softening, however city council heard a lot from residents who said given that you’re going to all this effort to build a new treatment plant we would like to see softening incorporated into that,” said McCoy.
As part of the project, the city is also building a new water tower. The current water tower is too small for a growing city’s needs, said McCoy. The new one will store hundreds of thousands of gallons more than the present-day tower can hold. The new tower will most likely be built on the north end of town, while the old one will be drained of water but kept as a monument. If all goes without delay, construction could wrap up as early as 2021.
To keep up with the latest in this project, click here.
CORRECTION: A previous story said the water treatment plant would be located on the north end of the park, when it will actually be located on the south end.
