Valparaiso’s $18 million water treatment improvement project should be able to handle the city’s needs for the next 20 years, Mayor Jon Costas said at the Airport Treatment Plant’s ribbon cutting.
That includes what future businesses might need if they locate in the city, he said, citing how Pratt Industries brought its recycling plant and became the city’s biggest employer because the services it needed were available.
City Utilities Director Steve Poulos said the water project is the result of three-and-a-half years of focus groups, well field studies and buying land for the first new wells since 1992.
It’s far from the storage cisterns the city built in 1866 that couldn’t adequately supply water to the city, he said.
The project rehabilitated the two-million gallon water storage and added a half-million gallon storage tank, according to materials from the utilities staff. Work includes two new high service pumps, two new filters and a backwash system that increases water recovery.
The new system can produce 3.5 to 4 million more gallons of water per day, Poulos said. The wells went on line in spring, while the improved equipment started operating at the end of July, he said.
The results accommodate city growth as well as prepare Valparaiso to phase out the 35- to 45-year-old wells at the airports. Those have about 10 more years of life, Poulos said.
Water Department worker Dave Wells said he thought the new equipment “is nice, beautiful” and will make his work easier.
“We’ve got enough hard work to do in town,” Wells said.
James D. Wolf Jr. is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.