The City of Waterloo dealt with water on multiple fronts Monday night.

Faced with mounting criticism on social media about the quality of the product from its new water plant and the contractor in charge of maintaining this service, city officials fielded comments publicly and provided updates during a water/sewer committee meeting held prior to Monday’s regular city council meeting at City Hall. 

As previously reported, Waterloo’s water treatment facility went online at the end of 2024, ending a contract with Illinois American Water that would have resulted in increased rates.

The new state-of-the-art treatment facility located in Valmeyer, features a trio of wells off Bluff Road, about a mile north of Old Valmeyer. These wells drill into the Mississippi Aquifer, working one at a time throughout the day.

Also as previously reported, the city in September hired Certop Inc. – a contract water operating company out of Clinton County – for operation, maintenance and management of this $30 million facility.

The terms with Certop run through April 30, 2025.

This came about following contract negotiations with city employees who are AFSCME union members.

With relations still tense about that decision to outsource water services rather than use city employees, news that spread on social media late last week about a water sample snafu with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency put the city in the spotlight about its decision to go with Certop.

At the start of Monday’s committee meeting, Waterloo Mayor Stan Darter issued the following statement:

“The water that is supplied to the City of Waterloo is processed through our new water treatment facility and it is tested every day. Water quality requirements are set by the IEPA and are the same for every public water supply in the State of Illinois Our water quality always meets these IEPA requirements. The City of Waterloo contracts with Certop to run the water treatment facility. Certop employees have the same water licenses as a few of the City of Waterloo union employees. The most significant difference between the two is that Certop’s business is to operate water plants and the City of Waterloo union employees do not currently know how to run this water treatment facility.”

First to speak at the committee meeting was city employee Alex Bishop, who referenced the suspension of two out of the city’s five employees who have water licenses.

“Today, two of us were suspended for some unknown reason,” Bishop said, asking why not all five were suspended.

Darter answered that he could not respond to that question due to that matter not being on the committee meeting agenda as well as it being a personnel issue.

“So your stance is that you just are basically retaliating against two employees for no apparent reason? That’s what it looks like,” Bishop continued. 

After Darter reiterated that neither he nor the committee could engage in a discussion on this matter, Bishop added that “two of us posted on a Facebook thread and we were directly targeted today.

Bishop closed by saying that, per the Facebook discussion about the IEPA water sampling issue, the contract with Certop states that this contractor is responsible for the sampling, “not any employee at all.”

A second city employee, Cole Moore of underground utilities, spoke at the meeting.

“I’m just not clear why you, and (alderman) Kyle (Buettner) and all the rest of the aldermen are under the illusion that we are not qualified to run this plant,” Moore said to Darter.

“I did not say that,” Darter replied.

That response prompted talk of the city employees not being a part of the new water plant’s start-up process.

John Miller, a recently retired city employee, was last to offer input.

“This is why I retired. I loved working for the city but this is wrong,” he said. “I knew this was gonna happen.” 

In his report, Waterloo Public Works Director JD Landeck said the city was issued a notification of violation by the IEPA for not turning in samples for December.

Landeck stressed that this issue was rectified and all January tests were submitted and passed. 

“Our samples came back absent of contaminants,” he said. 

As long as there’s no consecutive missed samples, there’s no fine or further punishment to the city.

“Who missed this?” Alderman Jim Hopkins asked of the missed sample.

“I can’t disclose that right now,” Landeck replied.

Per a previously arranged contract, an outside contractor named Tim Albers was assigned as the city’s responsible operator in charge (ROINC) until his resignation on Jan. 1. 

The ROINC is responsible for signing off on all water samples for the city.

One issue also talked about prominently on social media of late has been the hardness of Waterloo’s water since the new plant has been in operation. 

While no residents offered input in person to the committee Monday night despite the constant barrage of complaints levied on Facebook, Landeck addressed this matter with a positive update.

Hardness is generally described as the amount of dissolved calcium and magnesium in water. 

Landeck said the city on Monday received a liquid solid separator that should alleviate the high level of water hardness. 

The installation of this water softening piece would begin Tuesday, Landeck said, after which testing would begin and there’s hope it could be online sometime next week.

As for hardness, Waterloo’s water has been testing at a rate of about 295, with a range of 150-200 being an ideal level.

It was pointed out that the last test when Waterloo was using Illinois American water was a hardness level of 223.

Yet another issue dealing with water appears to be in conflict with a measure taken recently by Columbia. 

During the Jan. 21 Columbia City Council meeting, aldermen approved a municipal services agreement with the owners of Old Monroe Distillery involving a property along the west side of Route 3 just north of Hanover Road.

This agreement sets the stage for Columbia to use that site as a utility hub to facilitate city water service in the area and as the first step in a plan for Columbia’s southern city limit reaching Hanover Road.

During Monday’s committee meeting, Landeck divulged that Waterloo is working with previous water supplier Illinois American on an extension to acquire Illinois American’s 16-inch main next to its 57 acres of property north of the city near  Waterloo’s electrical substation.