EAGLE GROVE — A multi-million-dollar wastewater plant will be ready to service Prestage Foods of Iowa’s state-of-the-art pork plant by Nov. 1, according to Bryce Davis, Eagle Grove city administrator.

Davis said city officials completed a walk-through of the wastewater facility last week.

The facility is being built on 22 acres of land in the 1300 block of Southwest Ninth Street, near the Eagle Grove’s existing wastewater plant. It will include the water reclamation plant, force main and lift station.

ISG, of Storm Lake, is the engineering firm for the project. Gridor Construction, of Buffalo, Minnesota, is the contractor for the reclamation plant. Denver Underground, of Denver, Iowa, is working on the force main. King Construction, of Wall Lake, is building the lift station.

The lift station will be able to accommodate wastewater flows from any future industrial development in the proximity of Prestage.

The contracted price for the new wastewater plant is just under $25 million.

Funding for the wastewater project came through the State Revolving Loan fund.

The city is contractually obligated to treat Prestage’s wastewater. Prestage will pay the city for the wastewater it sends to the new facility.

“Prestage’s schedule is our schedule, so we want to make that happen,” Davis said.

Prestage is building its $300 million plant four miles south of Eagle Grove. The company will employ an estimated 1,050 workers when operations begin in November or December. The pork plant will be capable of processing 10,000 hogs per shift. About 600 million pounds of pork will be processed annually.

The wastewater will be pretreated at Prestage before being pumped through the forcemain to the new water reclamation facility.

The water plant will eventually treat municipal wastewater also, but that phase of the project will not be completed until November 2019, Davis said.

“That’s for the final grading and hooking up the municipal side to the new plant,” Davis said.

Once that phase is completed, the city’s current wastewater facility will be decommissioned. That plant is at least 45 years old.

The new system will use biological nutrient removal, which uses an oxidation ditch for removal of ammonia and biochemical oxygen demand.

It will have the capacity to treat an average of 4.15 million gallons per day.

The new plant could require up to four employees, but that has not been finalized, according to Davis.

The old plant required 1.5 employees, Davis said.