The 11m investment from American Water includes construction of a new facility that will upgrade the system’s treatment process to improve water quality and to help meet the new, more stringent water quality regulations, enhance efficiency, system reliability and plant safety.
To meet the new water quality regulations associated with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, the project includes adding ultraviolet disinfection to the existing treatment process.
When used for treating drinking water, UV disinfection offers additional layer of protection against chlorine-resistant pathogens and microorganisms that could be present in surface water sources. The treatment facility uses both surface water and groundwater as its source of supply.
The project is also expected to improve safety by changing from using gaseous chlorine to sodium hypochlorite, a safer liquid disinfectant to produce chloramines, which has been used at the plant since 2011. Improvements to other treatment systems are also being made.
In addition to the present work, the company has also invested nearly $12m to replace and relocate nearly 7 miles of aging water mains in the Kokomo area in the last five years.
Indiana American Water president Deborah Dewey said: “From its earliest days, the Kokomo area’s water resources have played an important role in the development and continued success of the area over the last two centuries.
“While we have continued to upgrade our infrastructure over the years in this community, these investments will help us to take our water quality, service and reliability to a new level of excellence.”
Indiana American Water serves more than 22,000 customers in its Kokomo service area or a population of nearly 60,000 people.
