Antioch flips switch on new treatment plant

You do what needs to be done, close the lid and flush.

Who really cares what happens after that?

Jim Keim does.

The Antioch village administrator and other officials have worked for the last four years to replace the town's aging wastewater treatment plant. Officials flipped the switch on the new $15 million facility this week.

Keim said the new plant was long overdue. World War I was raging at the time the original facility was built.

"They decided to build it after a typhoid outbreak in town in 1914," he said. "It was finished in 1918."

Over the years, the village added to and upgraded the place, but Keim said that strategy became impractical. "It became a hodgepodge of addition after addition after addition. We were holding it together with rubber bands and duct tape," he joked.

Replacing antiquated equipment was only one motivation for building a new plant. Anticipated growth in town was another.

"We have a population of 14,000 now but expect that to reach 25,000 in the coming decades," Keim said. "We've increased our capacity by 25 percent with the new plant."

While most residents don't give much thought about their wastewater, Keim said this is serious business.

"This is all about pollution control," he said. "Cleaned and treated water from Antioch eventually flows into the Chain of Lakes, which is one of biggest recreational areas in the region. It's more important than people realize."

The new equipment uses an ultra violet system that replaces the old chlorine process. "That is much better for the environment," Keim said.

The village used a 20-year loan through the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to pay for the project.

Though, he's been leading the project, Keim gave kudos to the village board for approving the plan.

"Our board and mayors had the vision and foresight to move this through," he said.

The 10-acre site will look much different in about a year. The old plant will be torn down. Two new buildings will be constructed, including a maintenance garage and a new laboratory. The lab work is being done by an outside agency, but will be performed in-house next year, Keim said.

Residents in the adjacent Sequoit Terrace subdivision should feel the effects of the new plant.

"They will definitely hear less noise," Keim said. "And they will smell less (odor) too."