Location: Northwest North Dakota
Client: North Dakota State Water Commission
Background
North central and northwestern North Dakota have suffered through both flood and drought in recent history. Along with the economic struggle that accompanies these extremes in a largely agricultural economy, residents have also struggled to obtain and maintain a safe, affordable water supply.
The Project
In the late 1980s, the concept of NAWS (Northwest Area Water Supply) began. Since then, HEI in association with an international consulting firm, has provided a host of professional services to move the concept forward to a reality. Services included pipeline routing and hydraulic analysis, an environmental assessment (EA) and environmental impact statement (EIS) consultation, water quality bench scale and pilot plant studies, user rate analyses, surveying and mapping, preliminary and final design services, and construction management services.
Because of funding uncertainty and legal challenges surrounding the project, planning and construction phasing flexibility has been a hallmark of NAWS. The vision of NAWS is to provide a safe, reliable water supply at an affordable cost to a population of approximately 81,000 people throughout a 5,000-square-mile area. HEI’s design team has been flexible in working with constantly shifting timelines and priorities. Developing realistic solutions to meet these challenges was accomplished, and continues to be accomplished, through a long history of successful and large
multi-phase water supply, treatment, and distribution projects.
The revised total cost for the NAWS project with the addition of the Biota Water Treatment Plant is currently estimated at approximately $325 million. The NAWS project is a multi-year, multi-phase water supply, treatment, and distribution project designed and bid in multiple interconnected contracts authorized by the North Dakota Department of Water Resources.
This multi-year project is continuously working to meet the ambitious goal to supply water throughout the region and HEI has provided consistent and local consultation throughout the project life.
Learn more about this project that was featured in
HEI's 2019 fall/winter newsletter that you can read here.
