REGIONAL—Troy Larson remembers the lean years for the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System.
Lewis & Clark received about $2 million in funding in fiscal year 2011 and that was the start of a seven-year period where the water system struggled to receive government assistance.
So the news on Thursday, March 29, that Lewis & Clark will receive a record $75 million in funding for fiscal year 2022 was an exciting day for the water system’s executive director.
“For those of us that went through the wandering through the desert years, this is especially gratifying,” Larson said.
He knew Lewis & Clark would receive funds from the President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law this year. The question was how much it would be.
Early rumblings had Lewis & Clark receiving $60 million or a little more. Larson was pleased to find out $75 million flowed out.
“That’s higher than what we were told to expect, and we try to temper our expectations,” Larson said.
To put it the amount of funding for Lewis & Clark in perspective, the water system received $56.5 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 under President Barack Obama’s administration. That was the previous singular high-water funding mark for Lewis & Clark.
The $75 million will pair with the almost $22 million Lewis & Clark received from the 2022 appropriations bill, which was announced 17 days earlier, to give the water system almost $97 million for this year.
Funding from both sources will allow Lewis & Clark to award contracts for the remaining 32 miles of pipeline for the Madison, SD, service line, the 17 miles of pipeline between Hull and Sheldon, meter buildings at Sheldon and Sibley, a pump station near Hull, a ground storage reservoir near Madison and adding more lime drying beds at the water treatment plan as well as designing the Sibley service line and acquiring easements.
The funding will help keep Sheldon on track to receive water from Lewis & Clark by the end of 2023 or in 2024. Sibley should be connected by the end of 2024. Madison will be the final to be connected in 2025.
“Many times, I would go to communities like Sheldon and not be able to tell them what decade they would receive water, let alone what year,” Larson said. “It’s gratifying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is a huge shot in the arm, the biggest shot we have ever received.”
Lewis & Clark needs an estimated $48 million more to complete the project. Future indexing and inflation could put that number higher.
“We will get that; we will work with congressional delegation for appropriations and infrastructure,” Larson said. “Just because we hit record funding, we are not at the finish line. We will keep pressing, but it’s going to be a wild ride the next three and a half years.”
Each year the amount Lewis & Clark receives from the appropriations bill changes, but it has been trending in the right direction. After receiving $18 million in 2020 and $17 million in 2021, nearly $22 million was awarded this year.
But the major funding could come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which has $1 billion for seven authorized rural water projects — Lewis & Clark, one in North Dakota, three in Montana and two in New Mexico. Of the $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $420 was allocated to those seven projects for 2022. The rest of the $580 million will be allocated over the next four years.
Lewis & Clark will be eligible to receive additional funding in 2023.
“How much they allocate each year will be based on the remaining construction projected,” Larson said. ‘We have to take a look at how much construction there is this year and then we will put in a request. We expect to receive more than $75 total over the four years; that’s just our allocation for the fiscal year 2022.”
The Lewis & Clark board put the system in good position to receive hefty funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2022 with the amount of ground that is “shovel ready.”
The same type of planning could put Lewis & Clark in good position to potentially receive another good chunk of funding in 2023.
“We worked hard to make sure that we were ahead of ourselves with easements and designs of the pipeline,” Larson said. “We have already advertised the Madison service line along with Hull’s and Sheldon’s. We always try and stay ahead and have projects on the shelf.”