Bartlett celebrates start of Lake Michigan water supply
Bartlett officials celebrated the village's transition to Lake Michigan water with a ceremonial valve-turning Tuesday afternoon at the new pumping station and storage facility on the public works campus.
Village board members and staff gathered before their nighttime meeting to mark the completion of the $43.3 million project born from a December 2016 decision to become the 29th member of the DuPage Water Commission.
Bartlett Village President Kevin Wallace said that while he'd expected existing residents to be eager for the improvement in water quality, he was surprised to learn that real estate agents are using it to market homes in Bartlett.
Until the new system was activated May 17, Bartlett received 60 percent of its water from the Fox River via Elgin and the rest from local wells. It took about a week for Lake Michigan water to make up the village's entire supply, Public Works Director Dan Dinges said.