Mayor Kerry Thomson

Page last updated on November 17, 2022 at 10:40 am

Each week, Mayor Hamilton and Deputy Mayor Griffin provide video updates on recent news and key initiatives. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.

 

Join Mayor Hamilton and City of Bloomington Utilities Director Vic Kelson as they discuss the recent modernization project at Dillman Road Wastewater Plant.

 

Transcript

John Hamilton:
Hi, I'm John Hamilton, the mayor of the City of Bloomington. We are here today with Vic Kelson, the City of Bloomington Utilities director, out at the Dillman Road Wastewater Plant. And Vic, this plant is about 40 years old, and we're celebrating a big project that got concluded. What's been going on here?

 

Vic Kelson:
Yeah. The plant here is 40 years old. It opened in 1982. It's been in operation ever since. We have done a major modernization project and replaced a lot of electrical switchgear, motor drives, pumps, and blowers. We've completely replaced all the control systems for the aeration in the treatment process. And we built a new filter building with a new disc filter, which is a big improvement. So altogether, we spent 23 and a half million dollars on this plant over the last two years.

 

John Hamilton:
After 40 years. 

 

Vic Kelson:
After 40.

 

John Hamilton:
It needs some upgrades. So at the very basics, a wastewater plant is what takes all the sewage, the wastewater, from lots of places, and cleans it up so that it can go safely back into a stream. Right?

 

Vic Kelson:
Exactly. Yeah. So when that sewer water comes down here, it's got stuff in it. And that stuff would cause oxygen depletion in the stream if you just dump it in the stream.

 

John Hamilton:
Which is what we used to do, a long time ago.

 

Vic Kelson:
A long time ago, that's what we did. But when you got as many people as we do, you can't do that anymore. So what we do is we blow bubbles through it to do exactly what would've happened in the stream, except we do it all right here.

 

John Hamilton:
And faster.

 

Vic Kelson:
And-

 

John Hamilton:
Probably.

 

Vic Kelson:
And a lot faster, yes.

 

John Hamilton:
Now, is it true, I think you've told me this is the single largest electricity user in our county.

 

Vic Kelson:
It is.

 

John Hamilton:
This plant.

 

Vic Kelson:
This plant-

 

John Hamilton:
But it's-

 

Vic Kelson:
...uses more electricity than anything else. Even with our solar panels, we're still the biggest.

 

John Hamilton:
But this makes it more efficient; what you did?

 

Vic Kelson:
This will make it more efficient. The new process control system will help reduce the amount of air that we have to blow through the water. And the new blowers are more efficient than the old ones were.

 

John Hamilton:
Well, I've toured, and I know we're celebrating that today, the finish. Congratulations, by the way, on getting $23 million, in two years. That's a huge thing. It manages 15 million gallons a day. Is that the capacity?

 

Vic Kelson:
Our capacity right now, rated capacity, is 15 million gallons a day. We can push more through for short periods of time if we need to. If it's more than we can push, we've got a big basin up the hill that we can pump it to.

 

John Hamilton:
So you can just hold it there?

 

Vic Kelson:
We can hold it there and then let it back into the plant. We've got one more project to complete as part of this modernization and expansion, and we expect to be able to run 20 million gallons through the plant by 2025.

 

John Hamilton:
So there are tours happening today.

 

Vic Kelson:
There are tours.

 

John Hamilton:
Now, I know you love people to know about this stuff.

 

Vic Kelson:
Yes.

 

John Hamilton:
Can people come out here and see it? Or if people want to learn about it online or-

 

Vic Kelson:
If you want to learn about the plant or any of our plants, please get in touch with Holly McLaughlin. Giver her a call.

 

John Hamilton:
Great.

 

Vic Kelson:
...set up a tour.

 

John Hamilton:
Well, this is so fundamental to Bloomington. We often don't think about what happens here. But we depend on it every day, 24/7. And congratulations on what your team has done here. You got an amazing, almost 200 people at CBU who help give us clean water, clean up the water that [inaudible 00:03:18] sewers, and also manage the stormwater. And this is a part of that. If you want more information, check it out. But congratulations. It's a big day for the Dillman Road wastewater plant. And good luck moving forward, Vic.

 

Vic Kelson:
Thank you.

 

Speeches