The City of Hastings is currently in the midst of cleaning up water quality for the city, currently affected
by PFAS (forever chemicals). Hastings Director of Public Works Ryan Stempski said PFAS has taken up a lot of time in the department over the last several years including the construction of the new water treatment plant to go along with the nitrate treatment plant. Stempski said work is well underway on the plant, but it will require other infrastructure upgrades.
“We also have to bring a water pipe from well 7, think about the pickleball court area. We have to bring water down 7th St, down North Frontage Rd., to this central water treatment plant. So you’ll see us kind of finishing up this spring that watermain extension, then we’ll be paving those roads back in place this spring or middle of summertime.”
Stempski said the current water treatment plant is just one of three planned for the city, but the current one under construction will be the biggest.
“Our central treatment plant is going to be our biggest one, so the one we are constructing now actually has enough vessels in it to treat three wells. The other two treatment plants will be sized to only need to treat two wells. So just how our well field is located and situated, we have the biggest one going now. So size-wise it will be larger, we also have a lower profile so it will be a shorter building at the central water treatment plant. So, we have a different truss system in there to keep a lower profile to match with the surrounding commercial buildings. Versus out in the industrial park, we didn’t put in the truss system that kept it a lower height. We have a taller building if you will, that kind of fits in context with our industrial park nature.”
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