The Low Zone Water Treatment Plant off the northeast corner of Ideal Avenue at 110th Street South at 109010 Ideal Avenue South, is operational.

Celebrated with a ribbon cutting Tuesday, Oct. 14, the multimillion dollar plant was paid for with funds from the 3M Settlement Agreement and uses granular activated carbon (GAC) to remove PFAs from city drinking water. Water for the Low Zone Water Treatment Plant comes from Well 13, drilled to replace two existing city wells.

GAC technology at the Low Zone Water Treatment Plant removes organic (carbon based) chemicals like PFAS from water by using chemistry principles to pass this water through a filter, which then absorbs and collects the contaminants.

The ribbon cutting for the Low Zone Water Treatment Plant follows a years long planning and design process, with construction bids awarded in June 2023, followed by construction start in fall 2023.

Among the public officials and employees present to celebrate Oct. 14 were Cottage Grove Public Works Director Ryan Burfeind, City Administrator Jennifer Levitt, Mayor Myron Bailey, Council members David Clausen and Justin Olsen, Washington County Commissioner Karla Bigham, and Minnesota House Representative Wayne Johnson.

“Good afternoon everyone. My name is Ryan Burfeind, public works director for the city of Cottage Grove. I appreciate everyone being here today for the ribbon cutting of our low zone water treatment plant. This is a big day for our city and our community. Before we do cut the ribbon we have a few remarks that are going to be said. First I’m going to turn it over to Mayor Myron Bailey to kick us off.”

Bailey introduced the public officials present, then turning to prepared remarks.

“Obviously this is a very momentous day for Cottage Grove,” Bailey said. “This is celebrating one of what’s going to be two treatment plants in Cottage Grove. This one’s called the low zone treatment plant. And this is obviously a big milestone because this is the opportunity where we are ensuring safe drinking water for generations to come in Cottage Grove.”

Saying that the plant represented years of advocacy, Bailey then thanked those who had helped the city in its efforts to ensure clean water.

“The MPCA, the DNR, our city staff, who is all around us here today, the city council, and so many others. I know we have some of our construction team behind us here from Rice Lake.”

“When PFAs contamination was first discovered in the East Metro, it seems like its not that long ago, it’s been kind of a while, we knew our community needed more than just a temporary fix which is what we had at the time. We worked closely with the state agencies and with the 3M Settlement Fund we did secure the funds to build permanent treatment facilities like the one we’re standing in today.”

“This obviously did not happen overnight. It took vision, cooperation, and long range planning from our city council, our staff, the engineer’s, and frankly our community partners. Most importantly though it reflects our resident’s trust that we could get this thing done right.

“This plant is proof of what’s possible when a community comes together with determination and focus. It protects our health and provides a legacy of clean water now and into the future. So again thank you to everyone for making this building possible,” he said, glancing back at those present. “I think we were just talking about this is about two years and we’re finally here and it’s up and running which is pretty awesome.

“To everyone out there who’s been waiting for this for a long time, thank you for your patience. We do appreciate it. Yes, we have clean drinking water here in Cottage Grove, we’ve had clean drinking water. Now we have our first permanent treatment facility up and running,” Bailey said with visible emotion. “So I think I’m going to kick it back to our public works director Ryan Burfeind.”

Burfeind then came to the microphone, giving remarks of his own.

“Thank you mayor. Thank you for the remarks that do a great job showing what this plant means for the community and really what is means for the future and for generations to come. I was going to make that same comment. It was almost two years to the day that we had the groundbreaking for this plant, and while that might seem like a long time, but for a facility like this that is a massive undertaking.

“I was just talking with the construction team. Quite often you’ll have a longer time to build something like this, so I’m going to talk about that and how we got here today. I really can’t say enough about the entire team that we had on this project. Something like this, and this timeline, doesn’t happen without the type of hard work and dedication that we had.

“I think I’d like to first thank Stantec. They are the consultant that worked on design, construction, and administration on this project. They have been with us since our first interim treatment plant in 2017, so they have been with us every step of the way. To have this plant operational like I said in 2025, from the start of it, I know I pushed them pretty hard. There were a lot of meetings, a lot of times that, ‘you know we should really have another year,’ but we got it done, and got it done right in the time frame.

“There’s really more staff than I can recognize today, but I do need to mention Ryan Capelle, Brian Lynch and

Ashran Reveque

on the design side, Lee Mann with all his project management help, and then Dave Sanocki, Eric Balon, Sandy Schmid, and also Donald Charles with all they work on this site as well.”

“Moving on from there, the entire Rice Lake construction team, so Chad, Jack, and Steve, and we have Luke we have here today with us as well. Like any construction project there was a lot of issues along the way, but I’m proud that we worked collaboratively to address those issues and we’re excited to keep working with them,” Burfeind said in reference to the next water treatment plant project. “Thank you as well to the MPCA, DNR, and MDA staff. All their work on grant agreements, funding, and plan review inspections. I know they get pulled in a lot of directions, there’s a lot of work happening in the East Metro right now. But these projects would not be possible without them.

“And finally, and maybe the biggest thank you of all is to all our city staff. Every single department had a piece in this project. You have the utilities division but also public works as a whole, the engineering team, the building division with all the inspections, planning. We actually went through the planning commission process and approvals. Finance, all the reimbursements from the state. Admin, communications, this is a big project. We need to let the city know on what’s happening and they were a huge part of that. And public safety as well. There’s different aspects of this plant that we coordinated with them on, and different safety and emergency response procedures. So really it was an entire city project, and everyone on this team that made this project possible, so we could be where we are today. So with that I’d like to thank everyone here and let’s cut the ribbon.”

Taking the scissors as Jennifer Levitt, Justin Olsen, and Mayor Bailey helped hold the ribbon steady, Burfeind cut the ribbon to make things official.

Now online in south Cottage Grove, the Low Zone Water Treatment Plant was a group effort.