Site work for a water / sewer project in Bozeman, Montana. Conceptual plans call for site work for a water / sewer project.

Equalization storage is necessary to optimize the use and conservation of the City's Hyalite Reservoir water supply. Currently, WTP operators must call for releases of reservoir water 24 hours in advance of when the water is needed to meet City water demands. This operating paradigm requires the water treatment plant (WTP) operators to call for more stored water supply to be released from the reservoir than is predicted for demand. City water that is released from Hyalite Reservoir and not treated and placed into the distribution system is directed back to Bozeman Creek as overflow from the water treatment plant. Daily overflow volumes vary but can exceed one million gallons-per-day. These overflows accumulate over the course of an irrigation season to hundreds of acre feet per year, approaching 10% of the City's Hyalite Reservoir volume being lost as overflow. The equalization reservoir will eliminate WTP overflow of Hyalite Reservoir water by providing an intermediate storage facility for City water released from Hyalite Reservoir that the WTP can then divert directly from in order to supply the City's daily water demand. The anticipated storage site is existing City-owned lands near the mouth of Leverich Gulch. There is the potential to also utilize this land as an aquifer recharge mitigation site for purposes of municipal groundwater water right permitting. The predesign effort may include evaluation of options to co-locate equalization storage and aquifer recharge infrastructure. As of January 7, 2025, this project is included in the city's 2026-2030 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) *Project information has been obtained through a public capital improvement plan (CIP). A CIP is a financial schedule for short- and long-range projects which is updated regularly. Information listed in the CIP often evolves based on funding availability and the project details, including timeline and value, are subject to change. The content management team will continue to pursue additional details as they become available.