Connecting Neighbors Waterline
Connecting Neighbors Waterline
The $105M, 72-Mile Pipeline Project that was begun in 2025 go from the water treatment facility south of Platte to Mitchell. It passes within a few miles of Corsica (closest point will be 3 miles west and 2 miles north of town.) The Stickney to Mitchell section was completed in 2025 and now construction is between the Aurora County water tower and Platte. It is scheduled to be operational in 2027.
The new pipeline will serve as a secondary, redundant water supply for Mitchell and increase the capacity of the Davison Rural Water System and the Aurora-Brule Rural Water System.
Some of the 60 foot pipes started
arriving in December...
...but began arriving in ernest in late
February.
Each section is 60 feet long. It is about
30 inches in diameter with a wall thickness of about 2.25 inches leaving an
inside diameter of just over 25 inches. 72 miles of the pipe would take
about 9.9 million gallons of water to fill it. It is designed to carry
up to 5,500 gallons of water per minute.
The sections are fused together in a
device specifically designed for it. Two arms grab the end of each section
and can move the pieces closer together or farther apart. The two disks in
the upper left are a heater and a shaver.
The shaver has 3 very sharp "razors" on a
rotating disk.
The shaver is lowered between the two sections
and they are pressed against it as it rotates. This gives clean, fresh and
true surfaces for the joining
process.
Then the heater disk, at 450 degrees, is squeezed
between the
sections for 11 minutes. The melting
plastic starts to ooze at the edge.
The heater is removed, the surface
temperature is checked with infrared thermal sensors to insure it is hot
enough and then the sections are hydraulically pressed
together to produce a bead of at least 1/2 inch. They are held like this for
an eleven minute cool-down.
The sections have then become a one-piece
pipe. 8-10 of the joined sectons are left unjoined so that they can be
moved until they also get fused before burial.
The top soil is scraped off and piled so
that it can be replaced later.
The long sections are then joined just
before they are placed in the trench.
The trench is dug, the pipe moved in and
the dirt removed from the trench is backfilled. Note that the pipe is quite
flexible.
This will be
leveled, the topsoil replaced and the area restored to its original
condition.
From the April 2026 RCWD update newsletter:
Waterline, Stickney to Platte Tanks - Spring/Summer
2026: In
February, the design-build team began receiving
additional pipe
deliveries and started waterline fusing.
Earthwork and installation crews
began operations in
late March, starting from the Stickney area and
working
towards the Platte Tanks. Crews will focus on the first
20-mile section to a point just north of Dakota Christian
School along
275th Street. This initial 20-mile section is
anticipated to take until
August.
Randal Community Water District website page about the project.