After a public hearing Monday night, members of the Ruthton City Council voted to pursue a new potential funding source to update city infrastructure.

“With money being a little tighter at the federal level, we’re going to try and dual-track the Ruthton project,” Bollig Engineering project engineer Jordan Odegard said during the hearing. “What that means is, we’re going to go after (Public Facilities Authority) funding for portions of the project, and then also go after (Rural Development) funding.”

Previously, Ruthton had been looking at pursuing U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development funding for the roughly $9 million infrastructure project, Odegard said.

Earlier this month, the Ruthton water tower project received $750,000 in federal appropriations. The city has also received a $600,000 Small Cities Development Program grant, Odegard said.

Photo by Deb Gau Ruthton's current city water tower was built in 1937. The city plans to replace the water tower, and make needed improvements to the city's water and sanitary sewer systems.

Several Ruthton residents attended Monday’s public hearing, along with the city council. Odegard went over the water tower and infrastructure project, along with updates on potential funding sources.

“The biggest thing with the Public Facilities Authority is that’s basically through the state of Minnesota. They have some different requirements as what their criteria look like for all their projects,” Odegard said.

The PFA also had early March application deadlines, Odegard said.

“We have a lot of this stuff in place,” he said. “A lot of the documentation is all the same.”

Odegard discussed Ruthton’s sanitary sewer system, drinking water system, and water tower. The sewer system was built in 1977, he said.

“For the most part, it’s in decent shape,” Odegard said of city sewer lines.

However, there were portions of the system that were experiencing a significant amount of inflow and infiltration from clear water. Ruthton also has a sewage treatment pond system that dates from 1977.

“Overall, it operates well, but again it just gets overwhelmed with the amount of clean water coming into the collection system.”

Parts of Ruthton’s drinking water system and water storage were older than the sewer system, Odegard said. The city currently has three active wells. One well was drilled in 1960, another was drilled in 1974, and the most recent well was drilled in 1990. The city’s water treatment system was built in the 1970s.

“It’s kind of at the end of its useful service life,” Odegard said.

The Ruthton city water tower was built in 1937, and was last recoated in 2000, Odegard said.

“Due to the age of the tower and the construction of the tower, it’s basically past its useful service life,” he said.

Odegard said Ruthton was looking at connecting to the Lincoln Pipestone Rural Water system, as opposed to building a new water treatment plant. They were also looking at replacing the old water tower, making some updates to water lines, and lining damaged parts of city sewer lines.

The estimated cost to connect to LPRW was about $2.2 million, and the replacement of the water tower was estimated to cost about $2.1 million, Odegard said. Adding in costs like the water and sewer infrastructure updates, the total project cost was a little bit over $9 million, he said.

After the hearing, the Ruthton City Council held its regular meeting, and considered a couple of resolutions related to the infrastructure project. Odegard said one of the proposed resolutions was to apply for PFA funding. The other resolution would be to adopt a city facilities plan that was also needed to move ahead with the PFA application.

Council members voted to approve both resolutions.