Monday, March 23, 2026 |
Photo – Rawlins water treatment plant – Bigfoot99 file photo
The City of Rawlins is set to begin critical water infrastructure repairs this summer.
During the March 17th Rawlins City Council meeting, City Manager Matthew Hall announced that eleven contractors attended a pre‑bid meeting to repair and replace the cathodic protection on the water transmission line between the Sage Creek Springs and the water treatment plant. Hall said the bid packets will be reviewed on Tuesday, April 7th.
It is important to note that although eleven contractors attended the pre‑bid meeting, not all of them are likely to submit bids for the project.
The City of Rawlins relies on a 32‑mile transmission pipeline to bring drinking water from the Sage Creek Springs to the water treatment plant. Portions of the infrastructure date back to the 1920s, with some sections still using the original wood stave pipe. In 2022, the city replaced roughly 10,000 feet of the wooden lines with modern PVC piping.
A 2023 Wyoming Water Development Office‑funded analysis of the city’s water infrastructure identified $50 million in essential repairs across four priority projects: revitalizing the Sage Creek Springs, repairing the transmission line from the springs to the water treatment plant, addressing the high‑pressure line beneath Interstate 80, and replacing the city’s two deteriorating treated‑water storage tanks.
The Wyoming Water Development Office’s plan recommended focusing on the transmission line repairs, with an estimated cost of $5.7 million. Last May, the city received a $2.835 million grant from the Wyoming Water Development Commission to replace the blowoff valves and cathodic protection system on the 32‑mile pipeline. The blowoff valves allow operators to divert water from the system for maintenance and repairs, while cathodic protection prevents the steel line from corroding. The grant requires an equal match from the city, bringing the total allocation to $5,670,000.
Speaking at the March 18th Carbon County Council of Government meeting in Hanna, Rawlins City Manager Matthew Hall said the cathodic protection work is expected to be finished this fall, with the blowoff valve replacement project planned for later in the year.
Elk Mountain Mayor Morgan Irene asked if work to revitalize the Sage Creek Springs collection boxes had been completed, saying he believed that was the first project Rawlins officials planned to take on. Hall said the Wyoming Water Development Office wants the design finished, but the transmission line project will come first.
Decades of deferred maintenance has left Rawlins with a century-old water system on the verge of collapse. The situation reached a breaking point in March 2022, when a catastrophic failure left many residents without clean drinking water for several days. Since that time, the Rawlins City Council has raised water rates twice to help offset the cost of maintaining and upgrading the system. In addition, the city installed a new computer controlled SCADA system at the water treatment plant and brought the pretreatment plant back online to supplement spring water with North Platte River water.
