Regional water co-op up servicing 5 central Illinois towns

ILLINOIS, (WAND)- Five central Illinois towns have a new water supply after joining the United Regional Water Cooperative. Harristown, Illiopolis, Niantic, Mount Auburn and Latham partnered with EJ Water to build a state of the art water treatment plant, now online and serving customers.

"It is softer than our water was, it is clearer than our water was," Harristown Mayor Evelyn Deverll told WAND News.

Water is clarified, softened and filtered through the $14-million water treatment plant.

"Hundreds of calls, they're even talking about how their dogs drink the water now," Niantic Mayor Robert Embrey explained.

These towns all had one thing in common- old water plants in need of pricey repairs.

"Our water plant as you know was aged and we were going to have to replace it or do something else," Mayor Deverll added.

"Its very economical, being a small village, it was going to take hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade our system," Mt. Auburn Mayor Mike Whitehead told WAND News.

"Our plant has been old for a long time but just haven't had the money for the updates and EJ Water is taking care of us really great," Mayor Embrey explained.

Instead of trying to raise thousands in their small villages, these five came together with EJ Water to create the Untied Regional Water Cooperative (URWC).

"This really helped us be able to get good quality water, that we didn't have to worry about, for a cheap price- and we still all have a voice," Joe Impson, President of URWC and a representative for Illiopolis, told WAND News.

The towns each have a voting member on URWC, so they can have a say in setting their own rates.

"Because we're a co-op so we all have a position on the board to make decisions for our towns whether prices go up or down or who we bring on or don't bring on," Impson explained.

Everyone is expected to save money because daily operating costs, and future upgrades, will be spread over the cost of all cooperative members.

"When EPA comes in and says you have to change whatever it may be in the compliance world, you have to, that town has to go through it. A lot of theses towns say they have 500 meters or 300 meters- they have to take that cost and spread it over 300 meters," Eric Ammrich, Business Development Coordinator for EJ Water said.

Towns are already using these savings for upgrades on water pipes and other projects.

"We were able to save some of that money that we were going to put into the plant 8 years ago and we actually just put in 7500 feet of 6-inch water main to upgrade the town," Ryan Virden, Latham's URWC representative said.

They are now encouraging nearby villages to join them.

"Ready to look for new members, whatever, so I encourage other surrounding villages to look into something like this," Casey Westen, another Latham representative on the URWC told WAND News.

EJ Water runs the treatment plant 7-days a week. The non-profit water cooperative has experts on staff who run daily test and complete any maintenance.