UPPER MICHIGAN (WLUC) – Major water infrastructure projects are coming to Ishpeming, K.I. Sawyer, Kingsford and Bessemer.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) is awarding $267 million in clean water grants.
Ishpeming was awarded $9.8 million for water main replacements, lead service line replacements and water tank security. The Interim City Manager for Ishpeming says the city is combining that money with a bond that will expand the scope of the project.
“We will be replacing 51,000 feet of water main, that’s 9.6 miles, that’s 20 percent of the roadways in the city that will be replaced as part of this project after we’re done replacing a lot of this pipe, it’s a big deal,” Grant Getschow, Ishpeming interim city manager, said.
The K.I. Sawyer community was awarded $3.4 million to repair two water towers and make other improvements to the water system.
“You will notice that we have two elevated water towers and they need to be refurbished and those are very expensive, we’re looking at nearly $2 million just to repair those, included in that we also have emergency generation for our water wells,” K.I. Sawyer Director Duane DuRay said.
While Ishpeming’s infrastructure project is set to begin next year, DuRay says the K.I. Sawyer projects can begin much sooner.
“We are having a pre-construction meeting tomorrow, and we’re going to be addressing some of the components of this project with the contractors directly. We feel there are a lot of pieces that we can potentially jump into right away and get some work done this year while there’s still time in the window,” DuRay said.
The city of Sault Ste. Marie was also awarded $17.5 million from the state and Bessemer also received $1.9 million. Kingsford is getting $3.6 million and Wakefield is receiving $4,000.
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