Engineering agreement signed for city water main project

A water main project will help improve the volume and pressure in northwest McCook this summer, including the supply to the west water tower. Above, it was photographed a year ago today, against smoke from a massive grass fire that destroyed one large home and threatened a wide area of the city.

Bruce Crosby/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — Some water customers on the west side of the city will see better pressure on hot days after a major improvement project is completed on West Fifth and G.

The McCook City Council approved Monday night with other consent agenda items an engineering agreement with Miller & Associates, Consulting Engineers, P.C., for the project. The agreement includes designs and construction inspection for a new water main on West 5th Street, from West "G" Street to West "M" Street.

In the agreement, costs for the design phase are $29,950 and for the construction phase, not to exceed $26,500.

It’s one of the first steps of a major project slated this summer that involves boring 2,500 feet of a new 16-inch water main under West Fifth Street. It will connect to an existing 16-inch main at West Fifth and G and also extend to the West Fifth Booster station, behind the Heritage Senior Center.

By using horizontal direction drilling, West Fifth won’t have to be completely torn up to do the project, said Jesse Dutcher, City of McCook Utilities director. The new 16-inch main will allow a greater supply of water to be moved to the West Fifth booster station, where water is pumped to the West water tower.

It will also reduce demand on the existing 12-inch main, so customers connected to it should see a more stable supply of water. That’s because instead of the 12-inch main being used to supply water customers and push water to the booster station, it will remain in place to service water customers only, with the new 16-inch main used to transport water to the booster station.

The west water tower covers most of west McCook, about one and a half square miles or 960 acres. The new main will allow the booster station to run two pumps on hot days in the summer instead of one pump, to push water to the west water tower. Each pump can pump 1,000 gallons of water per minute.

Commercial and residential growth on the west side of town the past few years has increased the demand on the west water tower, according to the Dutcher’s report in the city council agenda.

Another consent agenda item the council approved Monday night without comment was a grant agreement between the City of McCook Water Department and Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, for a grant in the amount of $5,100. The grant will be used for additional security equipment at the Drinking Water Plant with the city’s match, at 10 percent, at $510. Funding from the DHHS funding will be $4,590. Funds will be used for additional cameras will be installed by 20/20 Technologies on the inside and outside of the plant.