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Hastings ASR one of 20 projects to receive national award from EPA
Marty Stange, Environmental Director for the City of Hastings, accepted the Environmental Protection Agency’s George F. Ames Performance and Innovation in the State Revolving Fund Creating Environmental Success (PISCES) 2022 national recognition program award Thursday, June 22 on behalf of the city’s Aquifer Storage and Restoration project.
The ASR project includes a lagoon, and a pump and storage system that removes nitrate-rich water and returns treated water to the aquifer for use by city consumers.
The EPA recognized 20 clean water infrastructure projects nationwide for innovation. Hastings is being recognized for Excellence in Problem Solving for the ASR project that was conducted using funds allocated through Nebraska Clean Water State Revolving Funds. Hastings received $7 million in SRF funds for the project. So far, $15 million has been spent on the project, fall less than the initial cost estimate of $46 million. Other anticipated future costs include about $1-$2 million more for another injection well. The ASR project decreased nitrate contaminant levels and provided an economical engineering solution for providing treated drinking water to the city’s residents. The ASR Project has injected 7.5 billion gallons of treated water back into the aquifer since its inception in 2018. This clean water has allowed two municipal wells to be returned to service and four additional wells to be protected from rising nitrate levels. More wells will see the impact of the ASR project as more water is treated.
The award was announced by the EPA Region 7 office in Lenexa, Kansas on April 20, but Stange received the plaque during a meeting of the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy Environmental Quality Council, of which Stange is a member, on Thursday June 22 in Hastings.
“This award is a significant recognition of the work that Hastings Utilities staff has completed over the last 20 years in the development of the ASR Project,” Stange said. “This project could not have been developed without the dedication of our employees, assistances from the local Natural Resource Districts, technical support from the University of Nebraska, technical and regulatory support by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, our engineering consultants and contractors. This project has developed new understandings of the aquifer and developed improved technics to restore the groundwater quality. It is an honor to be recognized nationally of the creative solutions that we have developed.”
The state revolving funds are EPA-state partnerships that provide communities with a permanent, independent source of low-cost financing for a wide range of water quality and drinking water infrastructure projects. EPA’s SRFs have provided more than $216 billion in financial assistance to over 46,000 water quality infrastructure projects and over 18,000 drinking water projects across the country.
With the passing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in November 2021, over $43 billion in funding will be provided to the SRFs over five years for communities’ water infrastructure improvement projects. This historic funding will help address the most pressing water challenges of today, especially in disadvantaged communities, and make more water infrastructure projects possible.
Published Date: 06/26/2023