Area News

Stronghurst Spray Park Won’t Open This Year

By Brendan Schaley, Stronghurst Village Mayor

 I wanted to take a moment to address the spray park being closed for another year. While I enjoy the spray park as much as anyone else, it just isn’t feasible to open it up at this time. 

The spray park is very expensive to operate. When you factor in the electricity, chemicals, and water pumped out of the ground, it is a losing business. 

The village is, as many of you know, battling a water shortage issue. It is not just a well equipment problem, it is an aquifer problem. The quantity of water is no longer there to support the village. The village is in the process of overcoming the issues. 

We have drilled a test well in the Mississippi River basin that passes both quantity and quality tests. It is a very expensive solution to our problem and grant funding has been secured for phase one of the project. 

Phase one includes the drilling of two commercial grade wells at this site, installing a generator and preparing it to be connected to a transmission line to town. 

Much of the engineering and easement work for phase two has been completed, however, we are still going through the funding process. 

The total cost for this project is somewhere near 2 million dollars and should solve our problems for the long term. This project is estimated to be completed by January 2027. 

On a normal day, the village uses somewhere between 65,000 and 85,000 gallons of water. The well has to operate at around 110 gallons per minute to keep the tower full and supply the village with its usage. 

Currently the village’s well is operating at 78 gallons a minute, and it falls short of supplying the basic needs of the town. To break even, and try to stay ahead, the village purchased a semi truck and tank trailer. 

Honestly, it was one of the best things we ever did and has saved thousands of dollars. We haul water 4-5 days a week to barely stay ahead. 

Currently we are hauling water from Avon, as we have exhausted our supply from Dallas Rural Water and do not have access to the Galesburg well in Oquawka any longer. 

When we were hauling from Oquawka, we were getting 4 loads, but hauling from Avon, we only get 3 loads in. Each truck load is 6500 gallons, so currently, we are getting 19,500 gallons put into our system. 

The water is not free and when you include the driver’s wages and diesel fuel used, this water is a costly precious resource. 

What does this have to do with the spray park? On a normal day, the spray park uses between 10,000 and 15,000 gallons. That water is lost, it disappears into the sewer system as waste water. 

The water going through the spray park is free to the users and constitutes money lost to the village. 

Consequently, it does not make any sense to truck in 19,500 gallons a day to provide basic water service to the citizens and businesses and then lose 15,000 gallons of it down the sewer drain. 

There will be a day when the spray park opens back up, but it will not be in 2026. 

The decision to not open the spray park doesn’t make anyone happy, but it is a prudent one. 

The village is doing its best to walk a fine line to keep water service going at the lowest possible cost until the new system is up and running.