$11 Million Kokomo Water Treatment Project Gets Started

An $11 million project to upgrade Kokomo’s water system has gotten started. Developed by Indiana American Water, the scope of work being conducted involves establishing a new water treatment facility to help meet new safety and quality regulations while also enhancing system reliability and overall efficiency.

Several local leaders were in attendance for the start of the upgrade, including Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight and other partners.

“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,” said Indiana American Water President Deborah Dewey. “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.”

The Environmental Protection Agency’s has launched its new Long Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, which means that water utilities have to add new processes to their infrastructure. Indiana American Water will be adding ultraviolet disinfection to its systems. This will provide an added layer of protection to microbes and pathogens that are resistant to the existing chlorinated methods of disinfection. The Kokomo treatment facility derives its water from surface-based and groundwater sources. Chlorine-resistant pathogens could be present in surface water sources.

Gaseous chlorine, used to disinfect, is also a rather dangerous substance to use for plant operators. To improve safety, the company will be switching to sodium hypochlorite, which is a safer liquid disinfectant that can produce the same chloramines the plant has used since 2011. Additional upgrades are also taking place.

Last year, the company replaced the facility’s existing backup power generator, made changes to the backwash recycling process, and replaced some of the aging groundwater wells.

The new upgrades are expected to be finished by the end of next year. The ultraviolet disinfection improvements, and others, are being completed by the design team of Bowen Engineering and Arcadis.