In a wooded site along the west shore of the Missouri River, an engineering marvel was taking shape one afternoon in March that will eventually help provide fresh water to hundreds of thousands of people.
Contractors hired by the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System had positioned 16-foot concrete rings above a structure known as a Ranney well that will draw water from an aquifer 140 feet below the surface. To form the sides of the giant well, workers jam several of the sleeves into the caisson structure that collects water through a series of pipes that extend outward at the bottom.
The new well is part of a $150 million expansion of the Lewis & Clark system that provides 44 million gallons of treated Missouri River water each day to 350,000 people in 20 communities in eastern South Dakota and parts of Iowa and Minnesota.
The construction is part of a wide-scale increase in water service capacity now underway in South Dakota, where water managers of several systems are implementing plans to serve the state for the next 40 to 50 years.