Bondurant has broken ground on a new water treatment plant near Northeast Hubbell Avenue and Northeast 94th Avenue, a project city leaders say is necessary to keep pace with the community's growth. The facility rises on the same site that once housed the town's last water treatment plant, and it's slated for completion in 2028.
City leaders said the new facility is necessary to meet the needs of the growing community, according to KCCI. Mayor Doug Elrod framed the project in long-term terms, saying, “Our goal is also to build a reliable, financially responsible water utility that can serve Bondurant for decades to come.” The station reports the site previously housed the community's last water treatment plant, giving the new build a direct tie to Bondurant's water history even as the system around it is rebuilt almost entirely from scratch.
Why Bondurant Needed a New System
Bondurant currently purchases all of its water from Des Moines Water Works, according to a notice filed with the City of Bondurant. That document states Des Moines Water Works told the city its existing 12-inch main and associated booster station will likely reach capacity limitations during the first period of high demand. The stated purpose of the new project is to improve reliability, increase capacity and replace what the filing calls an obsolete system.
Growth is the driving force behind the numbers. The city's design population equivalent for 2045 is approximately 17,500 people, the filing shows, a dramatic jump from the 7,365 residents counted in the 2020 Census. The project is being planned around that projected long-term growth in water demand rather than Bondurant's current size alone.
What's Being Built
The largest piece of the project is the treatment plant itself, set on an approximately 12.5-acre triangular parcel, per the city's filing. A second component covers three new wells — numbered 5, 6 and 7 — along with a raw-water transmission main. Construction documents reviewed by ConstructConnect describe a 22,200-square-foot precast concrete and CMU building alongside a 600,000-gallon welded-steel ground-storage reservoir.
Inside, the plant is designed to include induced-draft aeration, horizontal pressure filtration and reverse-osmosis filtration, along with process piping, pump rooms and SCADA equipment, the construction records show. Those same project documents set a schedule goal of delivering potable water to the distribution system by December 2027, ahead of the broader 2028 completion date reported by KCCI.
Environmental Sign-Off and Regional Context
The project cleared a key environmental hurdle in mid-2025, when a Finding of No Significant Impact was issued for the facility, according to the City of Bondurant filing. That finding states no significant impact to surface water quality, fish, shellfish, wildlife or natural habitats is expected, provided the city obtains and follows an NPDES General Permit Number 2.
Bondurant's build is one piece of a broader regional push to expand central Iowa's water capacity. Central Iowa Water Works and its 12 member agencies have outlined a separate $155 million expansion expected to add 12 million gallons of capacity by 2032, according to a KCCI Investigates report. That regional context underscores the capacity pressures Bondurant's own filing flagged with Des Moines Water Works, even as the city works to secure its own independent supply.
