PICK CITY - A new water pipeline is going gangbusters and delivery to some users is just weeks away.

At least one user - John Tunge, who manages Lake Sakakawea State Park - said it's like waiting for Christmas.

While there wasn't any snow, there was plenty of rain in June and early July. Still, Karas Construction is three to four weeks ahead of schedule on the $1.7 million project.

That's that much sooner the state park and others can get out of the water treatment business and cabin owners can turn on the tap to drinkable water, rather than fill cisterns, or haul jugs.

The company wrapped a pipeline from Riverdale around the south face of Garrison Dam, branched off to Lake Sakakawea State Park and will head west to service cabin owners in the vicinity.

The pipeline is a project by the North Central Rural Water Consortium.

The consortium will distribute water treated at Riverdale to the state park, the U.S. Fish Hatchery and Army Corps of Engineers below the dam, Pick City eventually, and to rural homes and cabins east and west of Riverdale.

Darrell Hournbuckle with Interstate Engineering said the plan is to sanitize and pressurize the pipeline from Riverdale as far as the state park within the next two weeks.

Barring any problems, it should be all systems go for users between Riverdale and the state park.

Tunge said he's looking forward to getting out of the water treatment business. It's time consuming and expensive to maintain a treatment plant for the park, where about 2.5 million gallons are used annually.

In fact, treated water from Riverdale will eventually replace five treatment plants within six miles, including small and medium sized plants operated by the corps and the hatchery, as well as Pick City.

"We'd like to have (the water) like yesterday, just like everybody else," Tunge said. The park's been in talks about a replacement water source for a decade or more.

Tunge said the park's plant is nearing 40 years of service, and the choices were either tie in with another source, or build a new plant.

"The timing is just perfect," he said.

Pick City residents voted to join the water pipeline, though the town will treat its own water and enjoy cheap water as long as possible.

Hournbuckle said Riverdale water distributed by the pipeline will cost $2.65 per thousand gallons, plus a monthly base rate of $47.50 for rural homes and cabins.

The state park facilities will be used as a booster station to pressurize water heading west. Any users west of that point won't get full pressure until work on the booster station is done.

Hournbuckle said once water reaches the state park, Karas Construction will move to install service lines in lake cabin subdivisions.

People will be on their own to get water from the service line, or curb stop into their residence.

"There's a lot of people that are anxiously awaiting the water, although the lake coming up did take some of the pressure off," Hournbuckle said. "There's still quite a few with no water."

The final part of the pipeline project will go east from Riverdale to serve Wolf Creek Campground and cabin owners there.

The city of Underwood plans to share cost of the first three miles of construction to Wolf Creek, as part of its own project to get treated water from Riverdale, too.

The town voted to approve a contract for delivery from Riverdale because it will lose its well water when coal mining nears city limits over the next several years.

Underwood's water will have to wait until the Riverdale treatment plant is expanded, though.

Bids for a new membrane filtration system will be let this fall.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)