Water System Improvements

The Village of Marion faced a water system that had reached the end of its useful life. Undersized, aging watermains, an outdated water tank design, and deteriorating well infrastructure raised concerns about the reliability and quality of the community’s water supply. Regulatory requirements changed since the well was built, and elevated arsenic levels within the well underscored the need for action. As Marion continued to grow, providing a safe, reliable, and sustainable water system became critical.

To address this, the Village secured a Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) grant and loan and partnered with F&V for design and construction engineering services.

Rather than only replacing the contaminated well, the Village took a systemwide approach:

• Replace 2,200 feet of aging watermain
• Add a new well and wellhouse
• Construct a 150,000-gallon elevated storage tank

The result not only fixed a problem, it future-proofed the community. These improvements increased water storage and pressure, strengthened firefighting flow, and provided safe drinking water.

That long-term thinking carried through planning and construction. Installing new infrastructure on Village-owned property cut land and underground costs, and the project scope was refined to come in under budget. Systemwide water meter upgrades gave the Village real-time usage monitoring and leak detection, improving billing accuracy and supporting conservation. The Village reinvested the project contingency into system controls and data acquisition across the system and updated security cameras and access cards at the well houses.

Residents now have safe, clean drinking water they can trust. With permanent backup power sources for wells and a tower, the Village built a water system that they can rely on.