Monday, AUGUST 25, 2025 |
Photo – Rawlins Water Pretreatment Plant – Courtesy City of Rawlins
The Rawlins pretreatment plant is keeping water flowing to the city.
Earlier in the summer, Rawlins officials warned about potential irrigation restrictions due to the dry conditions. During the July 1st Rawlins City Council meeting, City Manager Tom Sarvey announced that Sage Creek Springs, the city’s primary source of drinking water, is no longer producing enough to meet current demand.
The city’s parks crews, who use approximately one million gallons of water per day, were asked to cut their usage in half. Additionally, the pretreatment plant was restarted, adding roughly one million gallons per day to the city’s water supply.
Built in the year 2000, the pretreatment plant takes raw water from the North Platte River and removes the majority of particulates and debris, known as turbidity. The pretreated water is then sent to the treatment plant for further refinement. Without the pretreatment plant, the raw river water would quickly clog the treatment plant filters. Although the facility is a quarter of a century old, it has seen little use since its construction. After the catastrophic water system failure in March of 2022, which left many residents without water for nearly a week, city officials invested millions of dollars to bring the pretreatment plant back online.
The water conservation methods appeared to have worked, as residents were not placed under irrigation restrictions this summer. During the August 19th Rawlins City Council meeting, Public Works Director Cody Dill said the pretreatment plant has taken a lot of strain off the city’s water system and its employees.
The City provides a website to track the current water flows. As of Monday, August 18th, the various springs and wells that supply the city with water were producing 2.7 million gallons. Residents and city staff used 2.1 million gallons of water that day, leaving enough to continue filling the city’s water storage tanks.
Rawlins Water Flows and Storage Data Website: Flows and Storage Data | Rawlins, WY – Official Website
