University Water Supply

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees on November 29, 1947, the Board of Trustees addressed the issue of a dwindling water supply. At the time the University maintained its own water supply facilities independent of the municipal service. [1]

For several years the water level in the ground resources from which the University and the Illinois Water Service (the utility which supplies water to Champaign and Urbana) take their supply has been dropping at the rate of one foot per year. During the year 1945-1946 the water level dropped approximately five feet. The Illinois Water Service Company is developing a new source of supply and plans to discontinue pumping from its present areas, except in emergencies or until such time as the ground water supply has been replenished by natural infiltration.

Repeated efforts have failed to locate an additional supply on University property. Engineers have advised the Physical Plant Department, and the Director concurs in their conclusions, that it would be more economical for the University to purchase its entire water supply from the Illinois Water Service Company than to go off campus the distance that would be necessary to obtain an adequate water supply, in as much as the Illinois Water Service Company has already begun the development of new resources. The increased cost of purchasing water from the Illinois Water Service Company is estimated at about $17,000 a year, but it is not as great as the comparable capital cost of increasing the facilities necessary to maintain the Universitys own water supply.

The Director of the Physical Plant Department therefore recommends that a contract be entered into with the Illinois Water Service Company for the entire Universitys water supply at Urbana-Champaign.

The matter was referred to the Committee on Buildings and Grounds for consideration.