DEQ awards Shoshone County water district $8.5 million

KELLOGG — Shoshone County went through a three-day saga in April 2017 after the Central Shoshone County Water District’s water transmission mainline broke. The Kellogg School District and businesses were forced to close before a boil water order was eventually issued.

However, the water district is hoping to curtail future mainline breaks with the design of a new transmission line thanks to the award of $8,530,950 from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality announced July 10. These construction projects stem from American Rescue Plan Act funds that Gov. Brad Little allocated to DEQ in 2022.

Shoshone County’s water project merited a major need, and so the central county water district netted the majority of the $11,085,902 distributed locally for drinking water and wastewater grants.

The 2017 break to the mainline stemmed from the erosion of a thrust block that held the original water main pipe together, water district Manager Chad Nelson said. Each of the fittings has to have a big thrust block on the back to prevent the force of the water hitting the bend from breaking the pipe.

“We’ll be rebuilding this so that we don’t run into the situation like we had in 2017,” Nelson said.

The mainline is a 24-inch wide transmission and stretches from the well in Enaville to the east end of Osburn.

“There’s 22,000 feet of pipe that we need to replace. Each year, we work on this transmission one or two times and it usually doesn’t affect or is noticed by the public,” Nelson said.

Though the antiquated system had been a cause of concern for the water district, the high cost to upgrade the transmission put a damper on updating the system originally put in place four decades ago by Bunker Hill Mining Company. The Central Shoshone County Water District is publicly owned, which means county residents are routinely asked to give their input on which projects are more critical to the area.

Nelson said the $8.5 million award brings the water district nearer to having all the funds to update the entire section of the mainline, but the expectation is that they will need to gain about $1.5 million more to bring the project to completion.

“Right now, we’ve got the design phase, then it goes out for bid, but we’re looking at it being an 18-month-long project,” Nelson said.

This grant was one the water district had reapplied for, and having DEQ recognize the need behind the application was a reassurance that they are looking out for districts with less spending power to ensure water quality remains safe and infrastructures are up to date.

“The DEQ has everybody’s interests at heart, including smaller districts like ours,” Nelson said.

More information about the DEQ awards and project criteria is available at gov.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/06.