After many years and millions of dollars, the Village of South Jacksonville is producing and treating it own softened water once again.
It took more than a year for the village being on the City of Jacksonville’s water supply so that massive upgrades at their water treatment plant in Oxville could be completed. The village returned to its own water supply in late September.
Utility Superintendent Brian English informed the Village Board of Trustees on Thursday that the final piece of the renovation – the water softener plant on Vandalia Road was now back online and fully operational after more than 8 years. English also said that all of the utility employees who work on the water side of the department are now trained in the softener plant’s operations, too.
Village President Dick Samples says that work to use the softener plant was done 8 years ago, but it was never switched on. He says the water quality in the Village is now on par with that of the City of Jacksonville: “Most people don’t even know the difference. I can’t tell the difference between Jacksonville water and our water. I’m not just saying that, but I don’t see the difference if there is any at all. It’s as soft as the Jacksonville water we were getting, and I think everything is getting along really good.”
The improved and now-functional water system came at a hefty cost. During discussions on Thursday night about the posting of the Village’s annual reports in the local newspapers, Village Treasurer Mindy Olsen warned trustees that they may be getting a few phone calls from residents asking why the Utility Department’s ledger showed a $443,000 loss for the previous fiscal year. Olson said that the loss was highlighted in the annual audit findings due to the amount of money spent on the utility upgrades, the lack of water rates keeping up with costs, and the amount of water the village purchased from the City of Jacksonville while the Oxville water plant was down for more than a year.
Samples says that the village purchased more than $1 million worth of water from the City of Jacksonville during the village’s upgrades and renovations. He says that the work saw numerous problems – more than they expected – when the work began more than a year ago: “They had to completely redo the softening plant and the regular [treatment] plant and make all kinds of modifications. We had clean out at the treatment plant. We took out over two feet of – I’m going to call it sludge – but what it is is iron in the tanks. We cleaned the tanks out completely. When we were using Jacksonville’s water and then we turned our water back on, we learned that when two water systems literally butt heads, it will blow the lines up. We went through that twice. It’s been a very large learning process on both ends.”
Samples commends Utility Superintendent English and Bryce McCormick for their work in getting the project completed.