Ogden will not be selling their water system.
Thursday night, the a motion was not made to vote on approving the travel expenses of a consultant who would have studied the water system and given the board a recommendation to sell or not to sell.
“Selling it is off the table,” said Mayor Jim Acklin. “It’s a dead issue at this point.”
Acklin said he thought residents in attendance made it clear they didn’t want the village to sell the system.
“I thought there was good discussion, it was civil, people felt listened to and we answered questions,” Acklin said of the meeting that saw 35 residents attend.
Acklin said while the village will not be selling the system, upgrades will still need to be made.
“It’s a time bomb,” Acklin said. “Something has to happen. The can has been kicked down the road for decades as far as lack of maintenance. It is not an option to do nothing.”
Village Engineer Mike Buzicky told the village board that almost 75 percent of the water mains in town need to be replaced as soon as possible.
“There were a lot of old water mains that are 75 years old,” he said. “There have been a lot of breaks and the indication from those breaks is that the staff can see it is corroding”
The mains are made of cast iron.
Buzicky said to expect more and more breaks as the mains continue to age.
“75 years for a cast iron pipe is at the end of its useful life,” he said.
Water meters are between 25 and 35 years old and are also at the end of their useful life.
Reading the meters, getting them into the system and doing billing takes a long time due to the age of the meters.
As meters age they also give inaccurate readings, Buzicky said.
“You are probably paying a little less than they should be,” Buzicky told the audience.
The treatment plant was updated in 1996 when the village installed a filter system to take out certain contaminants. Media in the filters need to be replaced. The media is sand or gravel that will make the filters work better after they are replaced.
Otherwise, the treatment plant is in good condition, Buzicky said.
“You don’t need a super automated computerized treatment plant,” Buzicky said.
Updating the water mains would cost $4.5 million, the softening system would cost an additional $600,000. Ogden’s water came back as very hard after testing and the board asked for estimates on a water softening system.
The village could apply for an Illinois EPA loan.
The loan has a 20 year repayment term with a 2.16 percent interest rate.
The loan would cover the cost of replacing all the mains with PVC water mains and upsizing certain sections, replacing the filter media at the treatment plant, installing an automatic transfer switch for the generator at the plant, replacing all water meters and installing the softening system.
Board member John Wright agreed that the mains are in bad shape and something needed to be done.
“We had continual main breaks,” he said. “We have talked for the last few meetings about meter heads that are failing.”
It wasn’t all bad news for the village. The engineer said the water tower is in good shape and the three wells Ogden uses to supply its water are in good shape.
“The wells serve capacity,” Buzicky said. “There is a redundancy if one goes down and they put out some good quality water.”
Acklin said this decision isn’t one he or the board is taking lightly..
“I feel the weight of this responsibility of this decision we are going to make,” Acklin said. “This is arguably the most important decision this board will make during their entire time on the board. It will affect the village for decades.
The board will continue to discuss the issue at the April meeting.
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