Newly updated Fargo facility ready to usher in future of wastewater management

FARGO — Things are flowing smoothly at the city of Fargo’s Regional Water Reclamation Facility as construction — scheduled to end a year ago — is close to wrapping up.

Run by Fargo, the facility at 3400 Broadway N. is responsible for cleaning most of the wastewater in the metro, according to Jim Hausauer, water reclamation utility director.

“We are currently doubling our treatment capacity,” Hausauer said. “We’re on the tail end of the large expansion project that started in May of 2020, and we’re just now putting the finishing touches on that.”

The project was supposed to wrap up in summer 2024, however the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying material delays slowed the process.

However, the end is in sight.

Construction on Fargo’s new state-of-the-art facility will be wrapped up by Dec 31, “come hell or high water,” Hausauer said.

This facility runs all day, every day throughout the year and requires trained staff to keep things moving smoothly. If the plant shut down, the wastewater could back up into basements or overflow into the Red River, he said.

At the high level, their role is treating wastewater, or sewage.

“People don’t realize what takes place here,” Hausauer said.

Wastewater comes in exactly as dirty as one would expect and, by the time it flows out of the facility , the water is so clean you can see to the bottom of its storage tank.

David Samson / The Forum

“One thing that’s really unique is that we’re treating wastewater from raw sewage to a high quality water,” Hausauer said. “At the back of the plant we essentially have a drinking water plant there … it’s probably just as good a quality as the drinking water from the water plant.”

The start of the process involves removing solid items like rocks, rags, sand, grit and ‘flushable’ wipes that clog up the works. Those solids are dried, heated and stabilized before being hauled off to the local dump.

The new update has significantly reduced the amount of odor coming from the plant, he said.

Roughly 97% of wastewater is liquid, he said, so that flows on from there into a very thorough cleaning process.

“Then it goes through a disinfection process and then enters the river,” he said. “So it’s better for the environment. It’s better for downstream users.”

Some of the water is sold off for commercial uses after being treated, Hausauer said, pumped directly to the nearby ethanol plant and the North Dakota soybean processors.

“They use it out there for industrial purposes,” he said, “And then they take their wastewater and send it right back to us. It comes through the front door and goes through the whole cycle again.”

That brings some additional revenue into the city, he said.

“Not only are we in the sewage treatment business, but we’re also treating sewage to a high quality and generating some additional revenue,” Hausauer said. “(That’s) revenue on water that just was originally going into the Red River.”

The new upgrade ensures the city remains in line with requirements but, beyond that, it allows Fargo to perform a higher quality of treatment process and operate as a top of the line plant.

“When we started this in 2007 there weren’t many municipalities or wastewater plants that were taking wastewater and treating it to a high quality and using it for industry,” Hausauer said.

The process is much more common now, he said, but Fargo was one of the first in the Midwest to use the approach.

David Samson / The Forum

The city now has sewer agreements with West Fargo and Horace and other surrounding communities, he said, and with Fargo’s growth, it became necessary to double the size of the facility.

This updated system can treat an average daily flow of 29 million gallons each day — enough to fill 725,000 bathtubs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey — and absorb heavy rainfall up to 50 million gallons, or 1.25 million full bathtubs.

Previously the plant’s treatment train could handle an average daily flow capacity of 15 million gallons with a wet weather capacity of 26 million gallons, he said.

This new upgrade is anticipated to last at least until the population in the metro grows to 271,000, he said, sometime between 2040 and 2050.

While his crew are happy to see construction finally wrapping up, advancements in wastewater treatment technology in the coming decades could make the plant nearly unrecognizable, Hausauer said.

David Samson / The Forum

The classic wastewater dome is already not as efficient as the new system, he said. And with those new advances, those domes will be demolished to make room for more efficient systems, Hausauer said.
And the land the plant sits on can accommodate a wastewater treatment plan large enough to serve nearly 500,000 people.

Now that construction is wrapping up, the facility sends about 12 million gallons each day through the new system and only 8 through the old.