The Evansville Water and Sewer Utility (EWSU) provides the Evansville metro community with high-quality, safe and dependable water and sewer service. The Utility continuously seeks and implements new and better ways to manage our community’s precious land and water resources, improve the systems we all use, and lay the foundation for a bright future for the coming generations.
The Utility is a public municipal agency funded by water and sewer rates and fees, not taxes.
Our water treatment plant draws water from the Ohio River. We process and treat on average 23 million gallons of water per day, serving Vanderburgh County and parts of Gibson, Posey and Warrick counties through our wholesale customers: Gibson Water, German Township Water District, and Town of Elberfeld. We maintain more than 1,000 miles of water lines – roughly the distance between Evansville and Denver – more than 6,000 hydrants, eight storage tanks and seven booster stations. Our water quality consistently meets or exceeds all state and federal Safe Drinking Water Act standards.
Review our latest Water Quality Report
Delivering safe drinking water through more than 1,000 miles of pipe is helped by seven boosting stations that maintain pressure as water moves to the perimeter of EWSU’s distribution system. Each booster station contains pumps as well as inlet and outlet pipes, a motor and electrical controls to turn the pumps on and off as needed. Water quality monitors sample water going through the booster station to make sure the system is maintaining the proper levels of disinfectant, pH and clarity.
Our water distribution network includes seven storage facilities to hold clean water so there is enough water in the system when demand increases. The facilities are strategically located to serve all areas of our community. When full, they have the capacity to store 28.5 million gallons of water.
The original Evansville waterworks facility went online in the late 1870s, delivering 3 million gallons of untreated Ohio River water a day to approximately 200 customers. By 1886, the plant was producing 5 million gallons of water a day serving 1,544 customers. Today, the Evansville Water and Sewer Utility filtration plant delivers on average 23 million gallons of high-quality, clean drinking water daily to approximately 63,000 customers in Evansville and surrounding communities. After operating for more than 120 years and undergoing 10 major expansions, the water filtration plant is near the end of its useful life. A proposed new facility is in the planning stages.
Long-range, strategic planning is essential to maintaining the Evansville Water and Sewer Utility’ water distribution system. With more than 1,000 miles of water lines, 600 miles of which are cast iron with an average age of 90 years, it will take decades to replace our aging water mains and supporting infrastructure. These ongoing annual improvements will significantly reduce the number of water main breaks, improve the reliability of our water service, and ensure our children and future generations will continue to enjoy safe, clean drinking water.
Learn more about the Refresh Evansville water line replacement program.
Our sewer collection system is an unseen asset that is crucial to maintaining public health in our community. Our sewer infrastructure consists of 800 miles of sanitary lines and 92 lift stations that we regularly clean and inspect. This vast network of pipes and pumping stations conveys wastewater from homes and businesses to the West Wastewater Treatment Plant and East Wastewater Treatment Plant. The treatment plants together process and treat 23 million gallons of wastewater per day, and the treated effluent discharges to the Ohio River.
Sunrise Pump Station is part of a multi-phased project to comply with public health and safety mandates of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The new pump station will prevent stagnant water and raw sewage from accumulating in Bee Slough, a concrete-lined ditch that runs 1.1 miles along Veterans Memorial Parkway. A new network of pipes will divert water away from the slough to the East Wastewater Treatment Plant, then to Sunrise Pump Station and eventually to the Ohio River. This will drastically reduce combined sewer overflows and prevent sewage from entering the slough and assure that water discharge from EWSU into the Ohio River will be much cleaner and safer. Sunrise Pump Station is scheduled to go online in 2022.
This project will significantly reduce the risk of sanitary sewer overflow in the area through construction of a new interceptor and a new lift station with an accompanying 30-inch force main, and elimination of the aging Pfeiffer Road Lift Station, which will be replaced with a new gravity sewer line. The new Wansford Lift Station will be located near US 41. The new force main will travel from the new Lift Station to an existing 90-inch interceptor on Diamond Avenue. The cost for all three contracts is estimated around $30 million. The construction is anticipated to last 2 years.
Elimination of the Key West Lift Station at is one of many lift station elimination projects underway. The reduction in lift stations reduces the need for station maintenance and upgrades, ultimately reducing system maintenance costs. This station will be replaced by 5,400 linear feet of gravity sewer line, ranging from 12-inch to 16-inch diameter, that will connect to the Creamery Road Lift Station. Construction is likely to begin in Spring of 2022. The cost is currently estimated to be approximately $2 million.
The Valley Downs Interceptor runs from the Stockwell Road Lift Station North to the Valley Downs Lift Station just north of Stockwell Park. This interceptor corridor needs a capacity increase to support customer demand. This project will be completed in two phases. The first design phase is currently under development – determining and reducing sources of inflow and infiltration (I&I). It is anticipated that the construction efforts to address the identified I&I issues will begin in 2022.
