Bloomington city officials are exploring more treatment options as they try to eliminate the odor and improve the taste of its water.
Bloomington residents have been complaining for weeks about the poor tasting water.
City manager Jeff Jurgens said he's heard from restaurant owners, too.
“[We’ve] talked to many business owners ... about the taste of the water. That is an issue. It affects coffee, it affects tea and it’s not acceptable,” Jurgens said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
Jurgens said the city has upgraded its water filtration system in recent days and that seems to have made some difference. City officials said in a statement they've also "slowed filter flows to increase contact time and made strategic staffing adjustments to improve response efforts."
“My understanding is it’s starting to get better,” said Jurgens, who assures the water is still safe to drink. “I’m starting to hear from a lot of different people who ... are starting to notice a difference with some of the different things we are trying right now.”
City staff said they have "reduced the filter loading rate by bringing six additional filters online." As of Friday, the city now has "14 filters online as opposed to the original eight filters." Staff anticipates two more filters being brought online soon, for a total of 16.
A chemical supplier, Hawkins Chemical, was on site Friday to explore more improvements, Bloomington officials said. The city said it's ordered a chemical compound that's expected to help, and it anticipates the system to be operational the week of March 3.
“My hope is that is really when we will start to turn the corner on this,” Water Director Ed Andrews said in a statement.
The city said in a news release additional treatments could cost up to $1 million annually.
The odorous water stems from the city switching water sources a few weeks ago. The city shifted from Lake Bloomington, which was running low, to Evergreen Lake. Jurgens said that's the systemic problem the city has to fix.
“Every time we switch lakes, there seems to be a time where there is a taste and odor issue,” Jurgens said. “We are trying to address it so that also gets better in the long term. This is not just in our opinion a short-term issue, it’s a long-term issue.”
“We want to figure it out so we don’t go through this again," Jurgens said.
Front N Center
The City of Bloomington's plans to turn the Front N Center building downtown into surface level parking are not a long-term solution, said Jurgens, adding the developer putting up residential units at the former Commerce Bank building nearby may look to expand.
“The developer that we’ve been working with on the Commerce Bank [project] [is] already talking about needing more land to build more units to make the project feasible,” Jurgens said.
The additional 140 parking spaces, he said, would help when the Market Street parking garage is taken down for a new bus transfer center.
Jurgens said tearing down the Front N Center building was the city's only option to salvage the property, noting developers had no interest in trying to rehab the former department store building that's been deteriorating for decades.
“If you had unlimited funds, of course you could save everything, but we talked to so many developers and we talked about so many different potentials. Nothing was feasible,” Jurgens said.
Sleeping cabins
Jurgens said Home Sweet Home Ministries has not reached out to the city for financial help for its proposal to put up sleeping cabins for the unhoused at the former Connect Transit headquarters near the homeless shelter south of downtown.
“We’re hoping to have more conversation on that,” said Jurgens, adding the city plans to invite the nonprofit to speak at an upcoming meeting. “Obviously, Home Sweet Home is leading the charge on it, but it really needs to be a community solution and the community needs to be behind it.”
Jurgens noted the property already is zoned to allow for a shelter.
The city collects sales tax dollars that Home Sweet Home hopes to use to cover a portion of the projected $2.5 million cost.
