1 week Ago By BRENDEN MOORE [email protected]
SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House on Monday approved legislation that would authorize the Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District to sell treated wastewater to private businesses within 50 miles of the Twin Cities. House Bill 1538, sponsored by state Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, would also allow BNWRD to accept wastewater for treatment from these outside entities.
It passed with no opposition and now heads to the Senate for consideration. If granted, local leaders intend to use the authorization as an economic development incentive. Specifically, there has been interest from data center companies eyeing the region to use effluent for their cooling systems.
"The objective is that we can bring the wastewater to our facility and use our facilities to clean it before it is released back into the environment," BNWRD director Timothy Ervin told The Pantagraph in February. "And then, by selling our effluent, we can offset drinking water being used in operations such as cooling industries (and) commercial businesses. So it's actually working towards water conservation.
" BNWRD would be the second sanitary district allowed to sell treated wastewater. In 2007, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation permitting the Sanitary District of Decatur to sell its wastewater.
This allowed the district to pipe water to a proposed power plant in Taylorville as that city's existing water treatment facility did not have enough capacity. The water would have been used to help convert coal into a clean-burning gas that would have generated an estimated 630 megawatts of power. But plans for the plant were ultimately scrapped in 2013, and the Sanitary District of Decatur has subsequently never utilized the provision.
Reclaimed water is often used in the irrigation of crops, golf courses and parks along with industrial processes. It is a more common practice in the western United States, where water resources are more scarce. Between its two water treatment facilities, BNWRD treats an average of 30 million gallons of water per day, according to the district.
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