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will likely be treated surface water from an entity that has excess capacity. St. Cloud has a 16-million <br />gallon per day lime-softening plant with plans for expansion in 2010. It is unknown if St. Cloud has <br />plans or would be amenable to selling treated water. Minneapolis Water Works has alime-softening <br />plant with micro-filtration treatment. The Minneapolis Water Works likely has sufficient capacity to <br />sell treated water to additional communities. Either source (St. Cloud or Minneapolis) would require <br />the construction of a relatively long pipeline. The cost of the pipeline could be substantially reduced <br />if it served additional communities in the Elk River area or in the area of the likely pipeline route. <br />Elk River Municipal Utilities would be in a somewhat advantageous position if it were to obtain <br />treated water from another source. By retaining the capacity to supply water from the existing wells <br />during emergencies, Elk River could substantially improve its overall water-supply reliability. It <br />would likely not be economically feasible to purchase treated water only for peaking purposes -any <br />purchase would likely be for base demand. Also, it is important to recognize that there may be <br />technical issues related to precipitation and dissolution with mixing water in the distribution system <br />from different sources {e.g., softened surface water and unsoftened groundwater). It is also important <br />to recognize that if a long-term drought condition does occur in the central Minnesota, the drought <br />conditions will likely adversely affect both surface-water supplies and groundwater supplies. <br />P:\Mpls\23 MN\71\2371105 Water Supply Alternative Study\FinalDeliverables\Altematives_Report_final.doc 45 <br />