Past halfway point, massive wastewater project positions Sioux Falls for growth

A $215 million upgrade to the city of Sioux Falls’ water reclamation plant is more than half done and staying on budget.

The upgrades will bring the plant from a capacity of 21 million gallons per day up to 30 million gallons per day.

“We didn’t switch how we treat wastewater. We essentially are expanding it,” director of public works Mark Cotter told the City Council in a recent update.

“There’s been a lot of work done over the year.”

The water reclamation facility was built in the 1980s and is located at 4500 N. Sycamore Ave. In addition to Sioux Falls, it serves regional communities such as Renner, Brandon and Tea.

Thanks to the favorable weather, crews were able to make enough progress that tower cranes came down at the site recently. A major bypass of the system, which has been used while it continued to stay in service, is scheduled to be taken down in May.

On the low end, the plant already handles 16 million gallons per day, “so you have to have a system to ensure we can keep doing that without any discharges to the environment,” said Ryan Johnson, utility administrator.

Taking down the bypass is a big milestone because “you’re going from a temporary system to a more permanent system,” he added.

There also have been “a lot of planned outages and planning that goes into moving the water while the plant is operating,” Johnson said.

The team at the plant “has done that flawlessly throughout the course of this last year,” Cotter said. It resulted in Sioux Falls recently winning the Water Wastewater System of the Year award from the South Dakota Rural Water Association.

While there will be continued investments into the plant, this is the first major expansion and rehabilitation in 40 years. It’s scheduled to be done by the third quarter of 2025.

“It’s been a great asset, and we’ve maxed as much out of it as we can, and it’s time,” Johnson said.