Jamestown approved to join ND cities in establishing CO2 storage facility - Jamestown Sun | News, weather, sports from Jamestown North Dakota

Oct 14, 2024

JAMESTOWN — The Jamestown Public Works Committee unanimously approved without recommendation to have the city of Jamestown join with the cities of Bismarck and Minot to establish a regional storage facility for food-grade carbon dioxide.

If approved by the City Council in September, it would cost the city about $205,000 to have 30 tons of carbon-dioxide storage at the regional facility. The regional storage would have a capacity to store up to 200 tons of carbon dioxide with Bismarck getting 100 tons and Minot with 60 tons.

Tyler Michel, public works director, said 30 tons of food-grade carbon dioxide is used monthly by the city's water treatment plant. He said there is no life expectancy of the carbon dioxide.

Food-grade carbon dioxide is used to treat drinking water.

Michel said having enough carbon dioxide as a pH stabilizer for the water department has been an issue for a few years. He said the main supplier for the state is out of Beulah, North Dakota.

“They will randomly on short notice shut the plant down when everybody is kind of running low on storage,” he said.

An unstable market for food-grade carbon dioxide makes it more expensive for water treatment plants in North Dakota to treat drinking water, The Jamestown Sun reported in October 2022. Moving to alternative options could also be costly.

Water treatment plants across the state see an increase in the cost to purchase food-grade carbon dioxide when a shutdown happens, The Sun reported in October 2022.

In 2022, the cities and organizations affected by the carbon dioxide market instability requested a collaborative effort between the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency, the North Dakota National League of Cities and the American Water Works Association to bring awareness to the situation and how it affects the water treatment processes and costs. They requested funding from the state for a National Science Foundation-approved food-safe carbon dioxide facility or a state-owned facility for the purpose of storing a constant carbon dioxide supply to treat drinking water in the state and to provide access and transport of the product to water treatment facilities.

Michel said the city has enough food-grade carbon dioxide to get through until next Saturday, Aug. 31.

He said the regional storage facility will allow each city’s water plant to get carbon dioxide from that location.

He said the project received grant funding from the state Department of Water Resources.

“It is 60% funded,” he said. “They (Bismarck) have done that for the preliminary engineering, preliminary cost so far. I believe they are either on the agenda for approval or have gotten approval for construction. Construction would be next year.”

Michel said it would take at least two years for the city of Jamestown to build its own storage facility for carbon dioxide.

“If we were to build our own storage tank of that same size, ... in order to get funding, we would have to be put on the project list, we would have to get the approval,” he said. “It would be a two-year time lapse when we could even get started on it,” he said.

Travis Dillman, city engineer, said it would cost about $600,000 for the city to have its own storage facility without state funding. If the city could get approved for a grant with 60% state funding, the local share would be about $240,000 to build the storage facility.

Mayor Dwaine Heinrich said it is necessary for the city to join with the other cities on the project. He said a plan will need to be made on how the city will pay for its share of the project.

The Jamestown City Council in a 4-0 vote approved a storm sewer project in northwest Jamestown at a special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 22.

The project will take place on 7th Street Loop Northwest.

Michel told the Jamestown Public Works Committee, which earlier recommended approval of the project, that the project was budgeted for 2021. He said the city of Jamestown tried to get quotes for the project from several contractors but got nothing back but didn't get any.

He said CC Steel, the general contractor for a 96-inch stormwater replacement project, recently gave the city a quote for the project at a discounted rate. The quote is for more than $48,000.

Dillman said the quote was at a discounted rate because CC Steel’s vendor will train its employees on ultraviolet technology for ultraviolet curing for cured-in-place pipe.

“It's something that we very well could end up using in the future on storm sewer or other utilities,” he said.

Prairie Dog funds will be used to pay for the project. Prairie Dog funds are a source of infrastructure funding for cities, counties and townships in non-oil-production counties and airports throughout North Dakota.

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