Construction for a new Marthasville city well and 300,000-gallon storage tank northeast of town will hopefully begin in May, according to project estimates from Cochran Engineering.

Engineers with Cochran last week told city leaders that engineering plans, contracting and construction for the project will be done in three phases. First will be the groundwork for the site, which is almost a half mile north of the city, to be developed alongside an access road connected to Hiawatha Street.

That phase of the project is expected to go to contractor bids by March, with construction beginning in May and ending in late June, according to Cochran.

The next phase of the project will be constructing the well, the well house, and a water main connecting to the north end of Hiawatha Street. That phase is expected to begin construction in July and be finished by December.

Lastly, the 300,000 gallon storage tank is expected to go out for contractor bidding in December, with a contractor selected the next month. This stage has a longer lag time to finalize plans and initiate construction, so work wouldn’t begin until March 2022, if everything goes according to schedule.

To put the size of the tank into perspective, a 20-foot-tall tank would need to be 50 feet in diameter to hold about 300,000 gallons. The tank will  be constructed on the ground, rather than in a tower, and the final size of the tank is yet to be decided.

The overall project has an estimated completion date of June 2022.

Mayor David Lange said the city plans to select contractors for each phase of the project individually, in order to get the best price on the work.

“Two of the phases are specialty work, which is drilling a deep well for a city, and putting up a 300,000 or 400,000-gallon reservoir,” Lange said.

Once the new tank is complete, it will have at least double the capacity of the city’s current water system. With its position on a hill north of town, Lange said the tank will supply adequate water pressure for the whole city and accommodate future growth. And because it will be situated on the ground, it won’t have the high maintenance cost of a tower.

“You’ll be able to stand a ladder against it and paint it,” Lange commented. “A lot easier in the long run for the taxpayers to maintain a tank like that.”

The total project cost estimate is about $1.4 million. Lange said it will be worth that cost if the city can eventually decommission its existing water towers and avoid the high periodic maintenance costs on them. He said long-term plans also include building a new water main from the northeast side of the city to the northwest, providing more direct flow and pressure from the new tank.