As part of a plan to secure water for the foreseeable future, the city of Enumclaw is preparing to build a new reservoir that will hold 3 million gallons and eventually cost about $6 million.

The City Council completed the necessary steps to obtain funding in February and is now taking bids. Construction could begin by late April, according to City Administrator Chris Searcy, and be completed by late summer.

The reservoir project has been on the city’s radar for some time. It was August 2013 when Enumclaw first accepted a loan of $3.5 million from the Washington State Public Works Board. At that time, the plan was to replace an aging reservoir with a capacity of 2 million gallons of water. In 2014, the reservoir was demolished. The city’s thinking then changed and it was determined future needs would better be served with a reservoir with a capacity of 3 million gallons.

The expanded project brought additional costs and the city returned to the Public Works Board, asking for another low-interest loan. A request for an additional sum of nearly $2.3 million was approved, setting the stage for this year’s construction.

Enumclaw’s two requests have been lumped into a single loan from the state’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. The total of roughly $5.8 million carries an interest rate of 1.5 percent and will be repaid over the course of 24 years.

The coming project is not expected to result in rate increases to city customers. Money had been borrowed in the late 1990s for city water projects and payments on that loan are about to expire, Searcy said. The present revenue stream, Searcy said, is healthy enough to handle debts incurred for the reservoir project.

A hike of 1.2 percent in the water rate was approved in late 2015 and took effect Jan. 1.

The new reservoir will be built where the previous reservoir sat, on land just north of state Route 410 across from the golf course. There also is a smaller reservoir at the site that holds 1 million gallons of water; the city also has a reservoir north of town that holds 1.5 million gallons, plus a couple of smaller reservoirs.

When the new reservoir is finished, Searcy said, Enumclaw’s storage capacity will more than meet its 20-year growth projection.