Rising costs from its investor-owned water utility led the City of Waterloo to evaluate alternative long-term solutions. The City determined that developing a new groundwater supply was the most cost-effective option to meet future water needs.

The project includes three alluvial wells in the Mississippi River Bottoms near Old Valmeyer. Raw groundwater is pumped through four miles of 20-inch raw water main up the bluff to a new, state-of-the-art treatment facility in Valmeyer. The 3.5 MGD iron removal and softening plant is the first in Illinois to use pellet softening, which generates a benign, sand-like residual that can be repurposed for backfill.

From the plant, finished water is pumped to Waterloo through eight miles of 16-inch HDPE transmission main. A new 500,000-gallon hydropillar elevated storage tank was also constructed to replace an aging lattice-legged tank that had reached the end of its service life.

To promote competition and efficiency, the work was divided into three bid packages:

• Package 1: Water Treatment Plant

• Package 2: Wells and Transmission Main

• Package 3: Elevated Tank