On Imagine a Day Without Water, we want to highlight how we #ValueWater with our community's commitment to invest responsibly in our customer-owned infrastructure.
The essential role of safe water in our lives cannot be overstated. Work underway now demonstrates our efforts to continue to protect water quality, reliability and meet regulatory compliance for mandated lead service line replacements.
Fiscal Year 2025 and 2026 Major Investment:
• $10.8 million in water main and lead service line replacements
• $4.8M water main relocation for Springfield Railroad Improvements Project (of $10M total in water work for railroad relocation)
• Water Distribution Crew & Staff Addition $1M
• Water Distribution Department Facility Relocation
• Equipment Replacement $1.4M
In recent major projects, construction for four new filters at the water treatment plant were completed in 2022. These filters represent the final step in the water treatment process. It is here where the smallest particles from the water are removed before going to the clearwells and out the high service pump station to the distribution system to customers.
Each of the filters in the filter gallery contains a layer each of sand and finely crushed anthracite coal, which screen out additional particles still remaining in the water. These filters are cleaned about every 96 hours by "backwashing" them with 60,000 gallons of water per filter.
Completion of this project brought CWLP treatment capacity from 46 million gallons per day to approximately 57 million gallons per day. Increasing capacity improves the operation of the filters by decreasing the overall flow rate. The goal of the project was to decrease this loading rate on the existing filters to allow filtration to be more effective. This project was bond-funded in conjunction with the Water Works Infrastructure and Improvements Project WWIIP ($87M) to upgrade the high and low service pump stations, intakes, dam gates, clarifiers, chemical storage and more. WWIIP bonding was covered by water rate increases phased in from 2008 to 2011.
Investing in reliable water infrastructure today, ensures a reliable water future for generations to come. #ValueWater #CWLP #ILWaterAmbassador
