Bloomington and Normal Water Reclamation District

The Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District plans to increase its tax levy next year by just under 5%.

A potential huge cost looms for drinking water producers — so-called forever chemicals or PFAS. Bloomington and Normal water departments expect regulation will eventually require removal of PFAS.

A plastics recycler in Bloomington now appears to be complying with Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District efforts to find out what was going on at the site on South Bunn Street, between Croxton and Bell.

You may have noticed your sewer use fees went up in Bloomington-Normal this year. They rose 15%. Bloomington- Normal Water Reclamation District Executive Director Tim Ervin said that’s about $2 per month for the average homeowner. And there will be several more years of double-digit percentage increases.

A series of loans, bond issuances and some user fee increases will fund 14 projects aimed at upgrading infrastructure that was originally built between 75-100 years ago.

Original proposed routes for Ameren's $1.6 billion grid upgrade included two possibilities that crossed through a south Bloomington nature preserve. The proposal now relies on existing corridors north of the Schroeder Wildlife Preserve.

Around $4 million for a long-planned Locust Street sewer separation project, improvements at the Bloomington-Normal Reclamation District and flood prevention within Uptown Normal has been proposed, but still need full Senate approval.

The Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District is moving toward issuing $100 million in bonds for improvements to sewage treatment and runoff in the area. District executive director Tim Ervin said that is roughly a third of a larger effort to modernize the system and comply with tighter federal standards on phosphorous and other nutrient emissions.

Wastewater treatment plants in McLean County had to process three to four times times their typical water flow during last weekend's storms, but a manager says the system operated efficiently with few problems.

Officials are investigating the cause of an explosion Thursday in a boiler room at a Bloomington and Normal Water Reclamation District plant.The incident…